Some people may be confused because Adobe (the company which has many software programs) changed the name of the free program which is used to open and read PDF files. Those of us who have been around awhile may still refer to the free program as Adobe Acrobat (the full name was actually Adobe Acrobat Reader); however Acrobat (a/k/a Professional) is the now the name of the paid program to create and edit PDF files and the free program has become Adobe Reader. 
 
When notifying our people which program to use, we should acknowledge the name change or be absolutely clear since to many people "Adobe," "Acrobat," and "Reader" all mean the same thing.
 
Cathy
 
 
 
 

From: Research Administration List [mailto:xxxxxx@hrinet.org] On Behalf Of Carolyn Elliott-Farino
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 5:10 PM
To: xxxxxx@hrinet.org
Subject: Re: [RESADM-L] multiple Adobe Program

Bob,
 
Of course we can tell everyone to close Professional when they want to open an application. But will that happen? I have my doubts. Thanks to Steve for the scenarios — very instructive. I think it is quite logical to expect research administrators to be able to figure this out and open the correct acrobat, but we are going to have to remind faculty every time they are interested in applying for something via grants.gov to shut professional and make sure reader 8.1.1 is running. Let's hope a long term solution arrives in the short term.
 
Thanks again to everyone who has been clarifying this for us all.
 
Carolyn

>>> xxxxxx@UMICH.EDU 1/29/2008 4:49:33 PM >>>
Steve, this is great!

Can we at least have a smile, that it is possible to have 
Professional 8 _residing_ on a PC with ADOBE READER 8.1.1 also 
residing.  And, we can be running Reader to manage an application 
with Professional residing but not open?

The frown comes if you try to RUN professional and reader at the same 
time.  Or if we open Professional first.

Might a temporary instructional solution be to tell everyone to close 
Professional anytime they want to open an application.  Then open the 
application with Reader?  Also, as you suggest, verify what program 
is open.  On my Dell, with Windows XP Pro, the actual name of the 
running program shows at the top of the window, next to the name of 
the file.  Is that a special preference to set?

Bob
xxxxxx@umich.edu




On Jan 29, 2008, at 4:27 PM, Shapiro, Steve wrote:

In lieu of all of the recent posts concerning multiple versions of 
Adobe Acrobat on the same Windows PC, I decided to do some testing in 
order to determine exactly what behavior(s) Adobe exhibits.  The 
results are causing an extreme lack of the use of my smiling 
muscles :-(. What I found corroborates what Bob posted @ 8:30 Tues 
morning.

The bottom line: Please instruct your staff who prepare proposals to 
always manually verify that they are using Adobe Reader 8.1.1 when 
working on application packages.

The procedure to manually verify the version is to open the Help menu 
option and select "About Adobe Acrobat … "

========================================================================
=================================================

And now, for those who are interested - the details in what I hope is 
an understandable format. I verified each of these tests on two 
different machines

I downloaded one of the Adobe Test Packages from Grants.gov

Scenario 1: Abode Reader 8.1.1. + Adobe Professional 6.0.x on the 
same machine

Action  Results
Ensured Reader 8.1.1 association        I checked that Adobe Reader 
8.1.1 was the default application for .PDF files
Opened App in 8.1.1     OK
Attempted to open App in 6.0    Error Message, would not open
Opened another pdf in 6 I wanted to edit it and make forms changes...
Minimized 'other doc'   I need to work on a grant app
Attempted to open App in 8.1.1. Right click and select 'Open in Adobe 
Reader'   It tried to open in 6.0. On one computer, it reset my file 
association for .PDF to Acrobat 6 Professional! I received an error 
message when trying to open (whew!)

         Bottom Line: It does not play nice, but I don't think App 
Packages open in 6, so there is little danger.
Scenario 1: Abode Reader 8.1.1. + Adobe Acrobat 8.0.0 on the same 
machine

Action  Results
Ensured Reader 8.1.1 association        I checked that Adobe Reader 
8.1.1 was the default application for .PDF files
Opened App in 8.1.1     OK
Attempted to open App in 8.0.0  Opened without error or problem! This 
is bad, but I did it to myself :-)
Opened another pdf in Acrobat 8.0.0     I wanted to edit it and make 
forms changes...
Minimized 'other doc'   I need to work on a grant app
Attempted to open App in 8.1.1. Right click and select 'Open in Adobe 
Reader 8' It opened in Acrobat 8.0.0! This is BAD! Really Big Frown Bad

the good news is that it did not change file associations

         Bottom Line: We have a serious problem here. If you have a 
document open in Acrobat 8, and attempt to open another  document in 
Adobe Reader 8.1.1 - It will open in Adobe Acrobat 8 (not reader). If 
this is an application and you then save the file, it will become 
corrupt, and will not successfully submit.


At the University of Oregon we regard this as a serious problem, and 
are currently examining the application packages in an attempt to 
determine if we can programatically catch corrupt application 
packages prior to submission. It's a complex process, and do not have 
any results to report so far.

Steve Shapiro
Technical Group Manager
Office of Research Services and Administration
University of Oregon

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====================================================================== Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available via our web site at http://www.hrinet.org (click on "Listserv Lists") ======================================================================