Rating PDF management, OCR, and signature package of Acrobat
January 11, 2024
Rating PDF management, OCR, and signature package of Acrobat
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Adobe Acrobat
We use Acrobat for 3 main areas, but principally to prepare documents before digitally signatures: namely minutes, financial reports, and purchase orders. Because our organization is a two to sign institution a variety a reports needs to be signed by the director team and management. While we used to use Acrobat to do this through their Adobe Sign service baked into the Acrobat suite we have since moved on to DocuSign for more volume signing and better rates. We also use Acrobat to create/edit/merge/redact pdfs, and use the OCR feature to digitize documents before putting them on our archive. The Acrobat software is a bit more powerful than some of the free alternatives to use. Since we were able to purchase Acrobat as a standalone licence separate from creative cloud it has been well worth purchasing.
- Redacting documents so that we can share them with a variety of audiences. We use this service in order to prepare sensitive documents that need to be shared beyond internal usage but either need severing as per FOIP/ATI legislation, or amending to summarize the content.
- Digitally signing documents locally by one person. We use this feature to sign files which do not need a secondary signature, but do require a signature on file that complies with signing requirements from a variety of vendors.
- Editing pdfs through insertion, deletion, and reordering of the pages. Frequently I scan material which needs to have optical character recognition run on it. By having these editing tools it greatly speeds up the processing time for digitizing material.
- The signing feature requires a secondary license with Adobe Sign which is a bit of a let down given the high cost of the product. While I understand there is maintenance and costs associated with it, the Adobe Sign product meant to be embedded in this product is quite awful compared to the competitors making this software suitable only for 1 person local signing.
- The menu bar for tools is a bit frustrating to use but manageable. I always find the bar reappearing when I just want to read a document, making it a nuisance to always have to hide it.
- The cursor by default automatically wants to highlight as opposed to select text upon opening a file. I'd rather it go by select as the default option
- The add commentary feature is a bit clunky and could be implemented a bit better. Make it like microsoft word where I can input text a bit easier and track changes with ease.
- Managing a pdf through insertion, deletion, and reordering pages
- Ability to sign files and lock them from editing
- Digitization using the built in OCR tool
- Managing a file for redaction purposes
- Ease of Use
- Other
I needed a piece of software that could secure our documents and meet the standards set by our accountants and privacy legislation requirements. While I was somewhat familiar with other options the determining factor for purchasing Acrobat was that I already knew how to use this software since I'd been using the free one for years. Acrobat seems to be the industry standard.
- Our organization frequently needs to distribute a fair amount of documentation merged into one big package and delivered by email or a secure link to the board of directors. Instead of sending a half dozen individual files, we can merge it all into one briefing document with Acrobat and have it transferred for printing, viewing, or casting onto a screen with more ease.
- I am unsure if Acrobat saves much time in the processing of OCR content versus other competitive packages. This often takes a considerable amount of time to process one at a time. I think if there was a case to farm out bulk tasks then OCR would likely be the one that makes the best business case.
- From a compliance perspective I often need to redact information when I receive a complaint, or other sensitive material that would be eligible for FOIP/ATIP legislation bets practice reviews. I am confident in the security and compliance that Adobe Acrobat offers to safeguard personal information and believe the sanitize document procedure reduces the likelihood of unauthorized releases of information.
The limiting factor in our security is not Adobe Acrobat. As far as a weaknesses in the chain, I am confident that the primary features I rely upon for Acrobat such as redaction, sanitization, and the signed document lock feature are sufficient to meet the needs set out to us by our accountant, and government partners which we file annual reports to. While there are likely workaround to editing a pdf after I lock it or sign it by nefarious means, I think a reasonable standard of security has been met with Acrobat.
I have used nitro and abbyy for OCR usage and found similar results. Google Drive I've used for OCR recognition as well. From a usage point of view, I have found Acrobat to have a much more intuitive interface to manage the features I need like editing, page insertion, redaction, and signing. While I imagine I can do all these things in other software I think the benefit of using Acrobat for more than a decade has made Acrobat the much more comforting and familiar choice.
Do you think Adobe Acrobat delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with Adobe Acrobat's feature set?
Yes
Did Adobe Acrobat live up to sales and marketing promises?
Yes
Did implementation of Adobe Acrobat go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy Adobe Acrobat again?
Yes
Using Adobe Acrobat
1 - Only management uses the full version of Acrobat on workstations for signing, redacting, digitization, and editing pdfs. The main usage by management for this software is to prepare files for usage by the board of directors. 5 other staff use Acrobat occasionally on their workstations but only use the viewing tools and signing tools that are included in the free version of Acrobat.
1 - While we do have a formal information technology contract with another vendor it does not cover this particular software, so there is no formal support for the software aside from the person using it. Since Acrobat is a basic end user software package meant for the general public I do not believe it requires specialized skills or people to manage the usage or deployment of Acrobat. Any additional training can be easily done with youtube, or linkedin learning.
- digitizing ocr and preparing files for archival storage and retrieval through keyword searching
- Compiling, editing, merging, and redacting files to prepare them for sharing within the organization or to share with outside contacts
- Signing and digitally securing files using the built in signature feature
- There is a tool that can be used to search the metadata within multiple pdfs in a folder. So if I have 50 pdfs in the minutes folder and know that it mentions the "Nakatomi" project in one of them but do not recall which one, I can actually search all 50 documents at once using the search tool to determine which file lists the project.
Evaluating Adobe Acrobat and Competitors
There are a few ai driven solutions that may meet our need for archival digitization. I did not consider them at the time since they did not exist. If I had to reevaluate the selection of the product in 2024 then I would consider sequestering the archival and digitizing through OCR component to a standalone solution and only consider the pdf management/signing aspects of Acrobat