COMPLEX TECH: Adobe's Acrobat 9 looks like it will be a desirable upgrade (or first install) for law firms

I was fortunate enough to receive a preview demonstration of new features in Acrobat 9 that will likely appeal to the legal market (my thanks to Adobe, which was unexpectedly approachable and responsive).  The preview was hosted by none other than Rick Borstein, a Business Development Manager at Adobe and the author of the Acrobat for attorneys tip blog Acrobat for Legal Professionals.  Acrobat defines software that has reached high level of maturity, and the first look was impressive.  If Acrobat 8 was enticing to law firms, Acrobat 9 adds to the attraction.

In the coming weeks, I will be post a review in multiple parts.  There is so much going on in Acrobat 9, that a thorough review would probably include too much information to comfortably digest at one sitting.  But I will mention a smaller new feature that will prove to be very useful for practitioners in the federal courts in California.  Acrobat 9 now includes a tool for splitting a large pdf into segments, using a variety of parameters.  This tool will assist with e-filing, when the document in question is too large to upload as one document.  The pdf splitting tool can split a pdf into segments of specific page lengh or file size.  The subsequent files can include the base file name and an addition piece of text, such as "Part_1".  It's an example of a simple, new tool that meets a very important need in the litigation field.

You'll have to stay tuned for my thoughts on the "big" tools and changes in Acrobat 9.