Adobe Flash CS4 & Acrobat 9 Pro Edition
Here’s my continuing coverage of the Adobe Web Premium Creative Suite 4 reviews of Adobe Flash CS4 and Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Edition and my recommendations for an upgrade or purchase.
Ease of Use, Performance: 24/25
Look & Feel: 24/25
Features 23/25
How much I enjoy 24/25
Total: 95/100
Adobe Flash CS4 is your simple to use animation creator that allows you to turn ideas into Flash animations with the simple to use and change objects based animations. Adobe Acrobat 9 is a PDF creation tool that turns documents, pictures and even video into Portable Document Format files for use on the wide variety of computers and devices.
I’ll start with the exceptionally easy to use PDF creator Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Edition that really is easy to use and simple to understand for a great program to create a file in the most used file format on the internet. To create a PDF document out of just about anything such as document, picture or text simply import or open the document or picture and export as a PDF document.
You can put files, documents, videos, audio and just about any file format you can find on the internet into a PDF format using the latest version of Acrobat. Choosing the layout of the document can be as easy as placing objects or text on a blank page or using your premade document like a word document straight to PDF.
Adding or changing things like pictures and videos or security is quite simply with drag and drop and export or a quick wizard for settings of your document security. Security is the usual 256 bit encryption for the general stop others from messing with your PDF document security that is easy to setup and even password.
Other new features with Adobe’s Acrobat version 9 are the ConnectNow.com online chat and sharing for people to view, chat about and edit common projects. The ConnectNow feature is a nice way for people working on a common project to upload their version or part and have others whether in separate offices or separate countries work on the same project.
Acrobat 9 allows users to imbed PowerPoint as well as geospatial mapping but these are only available on the Pro Extended version which is the higher price point of the software. You do get plenty with the standard version like the video and animation imbedding and the enhanced security so this is a good upgrade for the program.
While I had a few little problems here and there with using certain features of Acrobat 9 Pro the main features like creating PDF documents and securing them is very simple. Embedding video and animation may be a bit more difficult but not all that much as the main thing you need to worry about is compatibility.
Videos need to be in the correct format such as AVI, MPEG or FLV but will get transferred to FLV in order to imbed them which can be a problem for some files and formats. I found that some videos may not transfer to FLV so you have to try and see if your video works like I did with a video from my new digital video camera that would not work in Acrobat.
Imbedding a Flash animation worked just fine and other files and formats worked just as easily like taking an email and turning it into a PDF document. All the things I tried worked out well except some videos and using the program really is quite easy without having to dig through the help and tutorials too much.
I actually found that Acrobat is about the easiest program to use out of all the Creative Suite programs that I have checked out so far. It is quite easy to simply create a PDF document from files, photos, emails and general work from most any programs like Word or Excel.
Working with some of the advanced features like video and 3D takes a bit more work but with all the help available from Adobe you can probably figure it out easily. The program is really worth a look but I really could not say if it is worth the upgrade if you have a previous version, which would probably be up to you.
I do know that the features released in this version make it a worthwhile purchase if you don’t have Acrobat and need it but the upgrade would be worth it if you wanted the latest security and features. The program is easy to use and really makes the most sense out of all the programs in Creative Suite for anyone who needs to create PDF documents.
Acrobat is probably the most recognized and used program for creating PDF documents and the current release is quite easy to use and well worth the purchase if you need a PDF creator. I really think if you have put off upgrading till now this version is definitely worth the price and if you do need a PDF creator this is a great time to jump on Adobe’s.
Adobe Flash is the next program I will be discussing and taking a look at and I really am impressed with this but it is the hardest to work with so far, but not too hard. I have had to really break out the tutorials and work with a couple of sites and a book to understand and get Flash videos and animations to work.
Adobe Flash CS4 is your general Flash animation creator and takes a bit of work and study to learn how to use so this is the hardest to review. It is a great program but it does take some work to learn how to use but I did get a decent flash animation for my site to work pretty easily.
To create some complex animations you will have to work and really learn more of the ins and outs of the program but to make some simple ones you can have them done in a short time. I created my simple animation in a few hours but I have not used the program or created any types of animations before so I was quite pleased I could do so in such a short time.
Creating a Flash animation with the current release of Flash is a bit easier according to what I have read using object based animations instead of timeline based. This means the animation works by taking an object and using that object and its movement from one position to another or changing the object in some way as its base.
Instead of using time or the timeline as its main focus or process the program uses the objects themselves and where and what the objects are doing as its main programming. This means mainly that changes are easy like stretching out the entire animation to make it occur over a longer period of time by simply dragging the timeline.
I also tried some work with handling the motion editor and found this easy to use and change as well but I did not get that much into it. The Motion Editor is simply changing how the objects behave using the tween motion when you place the objects like having it rotate or scale while going from one spot to another.
Flash is really easy to use when you get the general idea of object based animation and how the overall program works but it will still take some time to get all the ins and outs of the program down pat. From what I have read on the internet this release is a complete remake of the program for the better so it is one that will be a big step to take if you do upgrade.
Being able to handle the timeline without having to worry about big changes later by using the object based animation just makes sense and Adobe did a good thing when they so drastically changed the program. Creating a simple Flash animation for a website was pretty easy once I figured out what I wanted and what I had to do to get there.
Using a tutorial or book, I used the Learning Flash CS4 Professional from O’Reilly Press as a guide, makes the most sense until you get the hang of general program basics. You really can just jump into creating your own flash animation like I did for my animation instead of following along with somebody else’s project.
I found the program quite easy to understand and use, its just all kinds of little things like being able to add the keyframes at the ends of timelines to work with the animation need some understanding. Some of these features whether their new or not are easy to grasp but this type of program will take some learning unlike others from Adobe like Acrobat and Photoshop.
Mostly Flash is all about making simple and useable animations for web pages or other computer work like presentations and reports and being able to do so in the least amount of work with the most amount of flexibility. I think that is the most one could ask for and Adobe has really strived to do the changes they needed to and make the program better even if they did have to change the entire way it worked in this release.
Adobe Flash is a big change in Creative Suite 4 but it’s all for the better with an easier to use and work with base and better controls for your animations. Updating and working with an animation will be easier later on and that’s what the main emphasis with the latest release has been.
Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro and Flash CS4 has really been changed for the better but it again will have to be up to you if you’re looking for an upgrade or if you want to stay with the version you have. I know that without having used either program before you can be up and running with either a PDF or animation that is simple in a short time.
Adobe Acrobat 9 is definitely an easy to use program and the changes made do make a lot more functionality while Adobe Flash CS4 is a really good program with animation using objects as the main change that makes working and changing things so much better.
Both Adobe Acrobat 9 and Adobe Flash CS4 are well worth the upgrade or purchase if you need the programs as the changes not only make working from one program of the suite to another easier there are significant upgrades in each program.