PDFalerts

PDF Download 2.0 is now in beta. You can sign up for the beta program here. New features will include:

Web to PDF (new)
One-click web-to-PDF conversion, all while retaining the page layout and active hyperlinks. The full support for HTML and CSS creates great looking PDF files ideal for archiving, sharing and emailing.

Better PDF to HTML
Convert PDF files on the Web to HTML faster and more reliably.

Cleaner interface
Customize PDF Download faster with easier to use options.

Wider support
Use PDF Download 2.0 with all the major Mozilla-powered browsers, including Firefox 2/3 and Flock 1.x.

Nitro PDF Software have released version 5.4 of Nitro PDF Professional and it includes enhanced PDF forms and content editing, amongst other improvements. Read more:

• Nitro PDF Professional available for immediate Free Download
• An introduction to forms in Nitro Pro 5.4
• Nitro PDF Professional 5.4 Release Enhances PDF Forms and Content Editing
• Nitro PDF Software updates Nitro PDF Professional

June 23, 08 - Adobe have released a critical patch for Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat.

Read Adobe’s security bulletin here: Update available for Adobe Reader and Acrobat 8.1.2

Summary:

A critical vulnerability has been identified in Adobe Reader and Acrobat 8.1.2. This vulnerability would cause the application to crash and could potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system.

Adobe recommends users of Acrobat 8 and Adobe Reader install the 8.1.2 Security Update 1 patch.

I agree with the sentiments expressed in this PC World article Has Adobe Taken a Wrong Turn with Acrobat 9?.

Since the release of Acrobat 7 it seems like Adobe have run out of new PDF related ideas for Acrobat. Has it reached it’s peak point? Some of the non PDF related features they’ve introduced in Acrobat 8 and 9 would suggest that it has. There’s only really two paths let open to Adobe — 1) finish cannibalizing the feature ideas developed by the third party plug-in community and 2) use Acrobat’s good name to introduce other non purely PDF related products and services, such as Acrobat Connect Pro and Acrobat.com.

Mean while back-at-the-pdf-ranch Adobe have to contend with a growing number of applications that support PDF conversion natively (Office 2007, Google Docs, OpenOffice, etc) and cost-effective Acrobat alternatives like Nitro PDF Professional and PDF Converter Professional, which are slowly eating away at Acrobats revenue.

Here’s a bunch of the best links from various blogs covering the recent release of Acrobat 9:

• Acrobat 9 Announced! New Features for the Legal Market.
• Acrobat 9: A revolutionary release.
• Acrobat 9 Knows Standards.
• Reference XObjects, PDF/X-5 and Acrobat 9.
• Preflight Audit Trails.
• Acrobat 9 JavaScript Revealed.
• See the New Adobe Acrobat 9 (FastCompany.TV).

Google Docs now includes support for PDFs. You can upload and share PDFs just like you can Word or Excel files. It also allows you to copy and search text in PDFs.

As you would expect, searching text in PDFs using Google Docs is lightening fast compared to Acrobat.

The ASUS Eee PC comes with either Xandros or Windows XP installed by default. Since there is a ton of different ways to create PDFs on Windows XP (just search Google for ‘create pdfs free xp’), this post will just focus on creating PDFs on Xandros.

In this tutorial we are going to use CUPS-PDF to add print to PDF functionality in Xandros on the Eee PC in Easy Mode.

Creating PDFs on the Eee PC (Easy Mode)

1. The first thing you’ll need to do is open the Terminal Window. You can do this by pressing Ctrl, Alt and T at the same time or by clicking on the Work tab, starting the File Manager, clicking on the Tools menu and then clicking on Open Console Window.
2. Now type in the following line and press Enter:

sudo apt-get install cups-pdf

Note: depending on the state of Xandros on you machine you may need to add another repository directly to the sources.list file. To do that, type the following command into the terminal window:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Then add this line to the end of the sources.list file:

deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian stable main

Then save your changes by pressing Ctrl and O, then pressing Enter and then pressing Ctrl and X to close the sources.list file and return to the normal terminal window.

If you run into further trouble, try updating your local repository with Debian’s sources and then repeat step 2. You can sync the repositories by running:

apt-get update

3. CUPS-PDF is now installed, but it won’t show up in your list of available printers until you have configured it. To configure CUPS-PDF follow these steps:

a) Open Firefox and type http://localhost:631/ into the location bar and hit Enter.

b) Select Add Printer from the web interface for CUPS-PDF.

c) Add New Printer: Enter in a Name, Location and Description for your virtual PDF printer. You can enter anything here, it’s purely for your benefit. For simplicities sake I gave my virtual PDF printer the name ‘cups-pdf’ and didn’t bother with location or description, as I’m the only one using it. Click Continue.

d) Device for cups-pdf: Select Virtual Printer (PDF Printer) from the drop-down list. Click Continue.

e) Make/Manufacturer for cups-pdf: Select Postscript from the drop-down list. Click Continue.

f) Model/Driver for cups-pdf: You’ll only have one option (on my machine it’s Generic postscript color printer rev4 (en)) to select, so select it and then click Add Printer.

Note: in the final step in the configuration after you click on “Add Printer” you may get a pop-up Authorization Request window asking you for a username and password for “CUPS” at http://localhost:631/. Try entering “root” as your username and then your machines password to get passed this authorization request. That worked for me.

And that’s it, you should now have the ability to create PDFs on your Eee PC.

A final tip: when you create your first PDF using CUPS-PDF a folder called PDF is automatically created in the My Home directory. Whenever you create a PDF using CUPS-PDF it will be placed in here. You can navigate to this folder by clicking on the Work tab, then clicking on File Manager and then looking for the PDF folder under My Home.

IT security professional Didier Stevens has highlighted a potential exploit in PDF Stream Objects which could be used to cause a PDF file to balloon in size, prompting Computerworld to label it the ‘PDF equivalent of the Zip bomb, or a PDF Bomb’.

Using filter parameters and filter cascading Stevens was able to create document that was only 2642 bytes in size, but when opened, decompressed to 1GB of data. This, as you can probably imagine, would cause some PDF readers to freeze up.

I recommend reading some of Didier Stevens other posts on security issues in PDFs as well.

• Foxit Software have released a minor update to Foxit PDF Reader. It is not clear yet whether or this update fixes the security issue discovered by Secunia earlier this week.
• Essential Keystrokes covers PDF Basics and Essential Tools in this post. Includes tips for finding an online PDF conversion service, or a PDF conversion application for the desktop.
• A comprehensive list of PDF Editing & Creation: 50+ open source/free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat.

Microsoft have announced that Office 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) will include native support for PDF.

With the release of SP2 users will be able to save documents directly to PDF from within Office applications, without having to install any additional add-ons. This marks a return to Microsoft’s original plan for PDF support.

When planning for Office 2007 Microsoft initially planned to include ‘Save as PDF’ support natively, but after a dispute with Adobe, they relented and instead offered ‘Save as PDF’ support through an optional add-on, which is available for free download.

Since PDF came under the control of a standards body in 2007, Adobe are unable to prevent Microsoft from including native support for PDF in Office 2007.

Microsoft also plan to include native support for ‘Save as XPS’ and support for ODF documents.