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Acrobat 6-8 Issues

• The internal name of the Search action was changed in Acrobat/Reader 6 from /AcroSrch:Query to /FindSearch. [Fixed in Reader 8.1]
  Acrobat/Reader 6 and 7, however, still recognized the previous name; Acrobat/Reader 8 no longer do. The action is executed in Acrobat 8.0 (but is not reported properly in dialog boxes), and causes a crash in Reader 8.0.
  
  
  
• Acrobat Distiller 7.0.x: FrameMaker's rounded rectangles are warped when distilled with the "Convert smooth lines to curves" option (Advanced tab, turned on by default in the "Standard" and "Smallest file size" options) [example]. This has to do with the way FrameMaker outputs its graphic objects to PostScript, splitting basic shapes into multiple segments. [Fixed in Distiller 8.1]
  
  
  
  
• Acrobat and Reader 7 have a preference of "Automatically detect URLs from text" (Edit > Preferences, General; turned on by default). Web links and e-mail addresses present in the text are interpreted as links when the PDF is displayed in Acrobat/Reader 7. Acrobat's interpretation of text-based web addresses may be problematic when the URL is split between lines, or when the "underlying" text is not recognized properly. In the case of e-mail addresses, the presence of a dot, an underscores or a hyphen also causes a problem in the interpretation (so John.Doe@company.com is interpreted as Doe@company.com).
  Web links that are detected automatically only show the hand icon (without a 'w'), and do not trigger a security warning ("The document is trying to connect to the site: http://..... If you trust the site click 'Allow', otherwise click 'Block'.").
  Reader 8.0: When the PDF is displayed in Reader 8.0, dot/underscore/hyphen present in an e-mail address does not truncate the detected address.
  
  
• Acrobat/Reader 7.0, Windows XP/2000 computers where Hebrew or Arabic are specified under Regional and Language Options, Advanced tab ("select a language to match the language version of the non-Unicode programs you want to use" field), all text fields and items in lists/combo boxes are right-aligned.
  In the case of scrolling lists, text items are right-aligned [AVI] with the vertical scroller to the extent of being hidden on-screen (but the printed form is OK). The forms function as expected with earlier releases of Acrobat/Reader. The same right-alignment problem applies to text included with the "Drawing Mark-Up" tools (call-out tool, text box tool).
  [Fixed in Acrobat/Reader 7.0.5]
  
  
• Cross-file links/bookmarks take you to the default opening page of the target PDF (typically page 1), and not to the specified page/destinations, unless the target PDF is already open or is opened in a new window -- this can be done by changing the "open cross-document links in same window" local preference (or by setting a "New Window" property for cross-file links). Control-clicking a cross-file link will also cause the target file to open in a new window, with the target destination display.
  [Fixed in Acrobat/Reader 6.0.1]
  
  
• Question: "Is there a way to prevent the display of advertisements in the toolbar of Reader"?
  Yes! Edit > Preferences, "Startup" section, uncheck "Show Messages and automatically update"
  
  
• Acrobat/Reader 7.0x do no show page labels when dragging the vertical scrolling bar (PDFs displayed in a single-page mode).
  
  
  
• Distiller 6 and higher do not validate internal named destinations. Previous versions of Distiller issue the following warning in the case of missing internal destinations (eg used by links/bookmarks):
  % [ Warning: The following Names in Name Tree Dests were not defined ] %
  (PS file, 1K)
  
  
• Page transitions (save examples & open in Acrobat/Reader; PDF page transitions are not displayed in web browsers)
  • Page transitions are displayed only in full-screen mode (MS Windows); previous Acrobat versions display page transitions in other modes as long as the page is displayed in a "single page" layout -- see example (PDF, 9KB).
  • Some page transitions are displayed very slowly compared to the display in previous Acrobat versions -- see example (PDF, 1212KB).
    
    
• Line thickness display is generally improved in Acrobat 6.0, but the results still vary depending on the techniques used by applications/drivers to draw lines in PostScript/PDF, so that you may or may not be able to benefit from the improvements. A hand-coded example (PDF, 23KB, produced by Distiller 6.0) demonstrates common ways in which lines are drawn by applications and their impact on the display. Inspect different page areas of the example at various zoom levels, and with "smooth line art" turned on and off [Edit > Preferences > General; "smoothing" (Acrobat 6) or "display" (Acrobat 5)]. Problems may be noticeable only in sections of the page or only with certain magnifications.
  
  
• Search:
  • Acrobat/Reader 6.0.1/6.0.2, Windows/XP: Current search string may be displayed improperly [AVI] when starting a new search [Fixed in Acrobat/Reader 7]
  • The Search panel takes up a lot of screen real estate and cannot move or float. In Acrobat/Reader 6, it cannot be resized when needed so items may are sometimes truncated in the Results box. In Acrobat/Reader 7, it is possible to enlarge the panel but this is pretty useless, as text boxes and fields are not resized accordingly.
    [Search panel can float in Acrobat/Reader 8]
  • Search results for items used infrequently are displayed only when the entire search operation is completed, which may take some time in longer documents (when a document is searched for the first time; you can Purge Cache Contents in Preference>Search if the document was already searched). Example: open the PDF Reference manual and search for Morisawa (which appears on page 2).
  • Proximity option is disabled unless "Match All of the words" is selected.
  • Search results cannot be sorted by field (eg Title, subject, keywords, producer).
  • Cannot display search results by title instead of by file name (when searching multiple PDFs).
  • Info button (or equivalent), letting you see all standard fields for a given item in the Results box, is missing.
  • Custom fields are not "remembered" when starting a new search.
  • Custom fields of a numeric type cannot be searched (eg search for all documents that have a Grade value larger than 85).
  • Boxes or odd-looking characters may be displayed in the words of context that appear around each instance of the search string instead of various symbols -- see example (PDF, 27KB).
    
  • Page numbers in the tool tips for search results relate to the physical/sequential numbers in the PDF, not to the actual page numbers ("page labels").
    
• Full-text search indexes produced by Acrobat Catalog 6-7 cannot be used in Acrobat/Reader 5 or earlier.
  Windows Acrobat/Reader 5 users trying to access the index created by higher versions Catalog get a message that it is not a valid index; Windows Acrobat/Reader 6 or 7 can handle indexes created by Catalog 5. [In versions 6 and 7, Acrobat Catalog is part of Acrobat Professional, but not included in the Standard version]
  Macintosh Acrobat/Reader 6 cannot open full-text search indexes produced by earlier versions of Acrobat Catalog because the third-party search engine technology used prior to Acrobat 6 is not available for Mac OSX.
  
  
• PDF Optimizer, "Remove Unused Named Destinations" function still risky! (Acrobat 6)
  When selecting Advanced > PDF Optimizer > Clean Up (in Acrobat 5: Tools > PDF Consultant > Optimize Space), the "Remove Unused Named Destinations" is turned on by default. Yet this operation is not fully aware of Acrobat capabilities which may utilize named destinations, and can make a wrong judgment as to which destinations are not used. Named destinations which are identified as being "unused" are deleted (damaging the functions which use them), including destinations which are exclusively used by links in other PDFs or in web pages, named destinations used in JavaScript functions (eg popup menus) or a named destination used as a default opening view.
  No warning is issued when activating this function as to the possible effect on interactive features. To experiment, use this example (PDF, 11KB) .
  [In Acrobat Professional 7, "Remove unreferenced named destinations" is turned off by default]
  
  
• In Acrobat/Reader 6 and later, the bookmark panel does not consistently show the currently viewed section in the document (through an emphasized page-like icon); collapsed parent bookmarks are not displayed differently to indicate that one of the subordinate bookmarks corresponds to the currently-viewed page.
  
  
• In Acrobat/Reader 6, File > Exit named action is interpreted as File > Close . [Fixed in Acrobat/Reader 7]
  
  
• Some security settings are interpreted differently in Acrobat 6. In Acrobat/Reader 5, the "Changes Allowed: None" setting did not prevent pop-ups from being displayed/hidden; in Acrobat/Reader 6.0, a "Changes Allowed: Filling in form fields and signing" is required.
  
  
• Question: "how do I get rid of those huge icons next to each bookmark in Acrobat 6 or at least reduce the space between bookmarks?" [Note: Acrobat/Reader 6 and 7 let you change the size of the text in the bookmarks, but this doesn't close up the space or make the icons smaller]
  vs.