[reportlab-users] Adobe/PDF Rumours

[Dinu Gherman]

Hi,

there are rumours spread by Adobe about an announcement within
a couple of weeks about Acrobat Reader 5.1, which will include
some new permission flags for saving PDF files from the reader
itself, and for some "simple manipulation" of files (maybe just
adding some annotations or so), plus handling of digital signa-
tures. I got this directly from an Adobe employee who did not
make much of a secret of it.

Of course, Mac OS X users can already save PDF files from AR,
given that PDF is a native data format on this platform (I only
recently found out that I can even have PDF docs as a screen
background!). So it will be interesting to see if the new reader
will disable this mechanism, here.

The targeted domains for these modifications (which leave the
PDF fileformat unchanged) is clearly the immensly huge E-Govern-
ment area!

In the same context it might be interesting to note that after
the recent acquisition of the Canadian company Accelio which
specialised in PDF forms/servers, Adobe is pushing hard into
developping strong server-side aspects, resulting in new pro-
ducts to be announced soon, labeled Forms, Output, Workflow and
Document Servers.

Regards,

Dinu

--
Dinu C. Gherman
......................................................................
"No one has ever had an idea in a dress suit."
(Sir Frederick G. Banting)