You can grab selected page ranges from within a Word document or pick individual worksheets from an XLS file, leaving the unnecessary stuff out of your final PDF. The Combine Files wizard steps you through packaging varied file types, such as a Microsoft Word letter, an Excel spreadsheet, and a variety of JPEG and GIF images to make one print-ready, PDF file. Also, there's more control over redactions to keep your top-secret documents snoop-proof. The drop-down menus from the refreshed toolbar are also pretty easy to figure out, and you can customize the toolbars. Acrobat 8.1 Professional offers tighter ease of use, with wizards to take you through PDF creation and management step by step if you need some hand-holding. The Start Meeting and Review & Comment buttons take you to Adobe Connect, which replaces Macromedia Breeze for hosting virtual meeting spaces.

Once Acrobat is running, the Getting Started screen presents big buttons for the major features: Create PDF, Combine Files, Export, and so on. During setup, Acrobat adds Create PDF buttons into other software you may have, including Microsoft Office applications from 2000 to 2007. Acrobat version 8.1 now works with Windows Vista, too you can visit Adobe's Web site to update from version 8 to 8.1. We chose the Typical installation, but you can select individual features with Complete or Custom setup, too.

The download took us about 10 minutes on Windows XP. The Getting Started screen takes you to wizards that make Acrobat's many features easier to navigate than in the past.

Adobe acrobat 8.0