Adobe has taken steps to clean up its act and will include secure PDF containment in its next releases of the Acrobat and its free Reader download.
The company has also switched from numeric sequencing of its releases to roman numerals with Reader X, Acrobat X and its associated suite.
Sandboxing has been used in several applications to isolate web downloads within applications and now PDF files will have the same treatment. This means the program alone accesses the computer and not the downloaded content.
This protected mode has been set as the default and will confine PDF processing, such as JavaScript execution, 3D rendering and image parsing. Any malicious content will be unable to install or delete files, modify system information, or access processes, the company said.
This has been included in both the Reader and Acrobat but has not been applied to Apple’s computing products. According to Adobe, these have been purely Windows exploits so far and it does not see the need to protect other systems.
Adobe is also adding a document exchange service through Acrobat.com. This will allow users to work collaboratively on documents over the internet.
“Companies today need to work with their customers and partners in multiple time zones, languages and as cross-functional teams,” said Melissa Webster, an IDC analyst.
“Seamless, fluid content creation and collaboration is critical to how organisations use, repurpose and share information – it is no longer a ‘nice to have’ – it is an imperative to success in today’s business world.”
Acrobat X has a new wizard-like guided Actions feature to simplify multi-step document preparation and publishing processes. Actions allows automation of these processes to reduce the amount of training required and increase the accessibility of the application and its suite to more people.
Adobe has forged a closer relationship with Microsoft with the inclusion of SharePoint integration to improve the consistency of style within PDF documents across the enterprise. This enables easier re-use of content and better exporting of content to Microsoft Word and Excel.
A release date has yet to be fixed but the company has said it will be within the next 30 days.
