Acrobat 8 (Mac) issues

Report · May 05, 2016

I'm working on a book, and while I know OS X has the native capability to create PDFs, I'm told that these PDF files are not truly press-ready and to do so, I need the actual Acrobat software.

When I started this project a few years ago, I knew the then-current versions of Acrobat were going to be too steep for my budget and began looking for older versions on a popular auction site. I eventually purchased a fully legitimate copy of Acrobat 7.0 for Windows, which I could run on a virtual PC environment I have on my Mac.

I still preferred to have a copy I could run natively on OS X and SOMEHOW chanced across a page here on Adobe's site that had a full copy of Acrobat 8.0 AND key (last 4 digits: 7040). Being the cheapskate I have to be, I wasted no time saving a copy and installing it. It has worked fine for the most part other than being asked every time it's launched if I want it to handle PDFs by default instead of Acrobat Reader.

Thing is, when I tried to use the PDF 'printer' to test the creation of a press-ready PDF, nothing happens. When started, the 'printer' (when called up from Word) comes up with the 'offline' icon, and the 'printer' dialog box shows its status as 'paused'. Trying to resume this 'printer' simply causes it to churn through the document then pause again. The file save dialog never appears.

So I suppose I need to start by asking about the version of 8.0 I had found here on Adobe.com (8.0.0 - and apparently NOT an updatable copy) and whether that was in fact a fully functional copy. If I need to get rid of this copy of 8.0 and use either my copy of 7.0 or go with the current subscription system, I guess I will do so.

Report · May 05, 2016

It really depends on which version of OSX you have. Acrobat 7 is already very old, and Acrobat 8 is old. Both versions have lost support by Adobe a few years ago, and depending on the customer support person, you may simply be chased away when you ask for registration etc. of these versions.

In the meantime, not only Adobe, but also Apple made changes in their architectures. One of those changes makes it no longer possible to create a PDF printer (in the sense of the AdobePS printer (driver))… if I remember correctly, that change happened some time in OSX 10.8. Also because Rosetta is no longer available and working, anything older than Acrobat 8 no longer works. In fact, I tried recently, but was not able to get Acrobat 8 running under OSX 10.10.

The conclusion is, you may well have to bite into the sour apple and get the newest Acrobat (to limit immediate effect on cash, using the subscription system). This is not thaaat bad, because Acrobat DC is not the best Acrobat ever (that was Acrobat 5, IMHO), but still a good Acrobat.

Hope this can help.

Report · May 05, 2016

I'm using the current release of OSX El Capitan (don't recall the full version string offhand).

The copy of Acrobat 8 I found must have been an Universal Binary as I do not recall ever having to deal with the presence or operational status of Rosetta.

It looks like you may be right that I may well just need to look at switching to the subscription-based version of Acrobat (but to me, the mere concept of being allowed to use software so long as you keep paying up every month instead of a reasonable one-time fee sounds like something the Five Families would do).

Report · May 05, 2016

Actually, Acrobat is (still) available as a perpetual license (you pay once, and that's it). The difference to the subscription model is that you will only get security updates (and maybe some features some product manager at Adobe considers to be worthy). For "better" updates, and the "services", you would have to shell out extra money.