News about Acrobat 5.0’s release had been hinted about since last week, but today Systems Inc. announced the immediate availability of the application.
Adobe Acrobat 5.0 is the company’s PDF, or Portable Document Format, authoring software. Adobe developed PDF to provide consistency in document appearance between platforms and software applications, with layout, fonts, links and images intact.
Acrobat 5.0 sports tighter Web integration, support for Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) to integrate PDF use into back-end databases, and easier data exchange in PDF files through support for Extensible Markup Language, or XML. Adobe notes that all Web-based capabilities in the new version are not available for Mac OS 8.6, “due to Apple OS limitations.”
The new Acrobat 5.0 is available with an estimated street price of US$249. (Upgrades for registered users of previous versions are available for $99.) System requirements for the Mac version call for Mac OS 8.6 through 9.1.
Acrobat 5.0 is shipping initially in the United States and Canada. French, German and Japanese localized versions are expected to be released in the second quarter.
Please check Adobe’s online statement for information on when Acrobat will be available for Mac OS X.