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Adobe Systems launched version 6.0 of its Acrobat PDF software Monday, making it available in three versions.

Acrobat Elements, Acrobat 6.0 Standard, and Acrobat 6.0 professional have been designed for different types of users, based on customer research, Mark Floisand, Adobe's marketing director for Northern Europe said.

"We identified what components each type of industry or user uses and instead of having one product that people only use bits of, we evolved it to a family," he said.

Simpler Software

Acrobat Elements is a simple version of the software for users who want to convert pages from Microsoft's Office and Outlook to PDF files with a "one button" option. It will only be available for Windows, and on a licensed basis for 1,000 users or more, Floisand said.

Acrobat 6.0 Standard is for business users who need to create and distribute documents for review. Users can track who has seen a document and check their identities using digital signatures, Floisand said. Previous versions of Acrobat software have allowed users to create PDFs from Web pages but most didn't know how to do it, he said. The new version therefore gives a one-button option for capturing a page and saving it as a PDF.

Previous versions have also allowed digital signatures, Floisand said, but "now it's more elegant and refined." Acrobat 6.0 Standard is available for both Windows and Apple Macintosh platforms, and can be bought off the shelf or under license, Floisand said.

Complex Creations

Acrobat 6.0 Professional has been put together for designers, engineers, and any other users who are creating graphically complex documents, Floisand said. Searchable archives, review, and markup tools and one-button PDF creation from design software including Autodesk's AutoCAD files, while retaining the layers in those files, will make it more useful than previous versions, Floisand said. Large page formats are also supported, he said.

Like the Standard edition, Professional is available for both Windows and Macintosh, individually or under license.

Professional and Standard will be available in mid-May for an expected street price of $449 and $299 respectively, exclusive of tax. Upgrades are available for users of Acrobat 4.0 and 5.0 for $149 and $99. Acrobat Elements has been available since March, costing from $29 per seat for a minimum of 1000 seats.

Adobe Reader, the latest and renamed version of Acrobat Reader PDF reader software, will be available free from mid-May.

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