Adobe Reader Ubuntu

Adobe Acrobat Reader is a family of web services and application software which is developed by Adobe Inc. for viewing, creating, manipulating, printing, and managing Portable Document Format (short for PDF) files.

The family contains Acrobat Reader (formerly called Reader) Acrobat (formerly called Exchange) and Acrobat.com. The common Acrobat Reader is a freeware that is available for various mobile and desktop platforms.

It supports annotating, printing, and viewing PDF files. Additionally, "Premium" services are also accessible on a paid subscription. Acrobat.com aggregates the family along with the range of file hosting services and enterprise content management. The commercial proprietary Acrobat can also convert, edit, create, digitally sign, publish, export, and encrypt PDF files and it is available for macOS and Microsoft Windows only.

History of Adobe Reader

In 1993, Adobe Acrobat Reader was introduced and had to face other proprietary formats and products that focused on making digital documents:

• DjVu via AT&T Laboratories
• WorldView via Interleaf
• Replica via Farallon Computing
• Folio Views via NextPage
• Envoy via WordPerfect Corporation
• Common Ground via No Hands Software Inc.

Adobe has retitled the Acrobat products many times, in inclusion to splitting, merging, and discontinuing them. The given products were initially known as Acrobat Distiller, Acrobat Exchange, and Acrobat Reader. Soon, "Acrobat Exchange" became "Acrobat". "Acrobat Reader" then became "Reader" over time. Between the 3 and 5 versions, Acrobat didn't have many editions. The service, i.e., Acrobat.com, came into being and announced various web services whose titles began with "Acrobat" in 1999, but "Acrobat.com" was declined from the family name of services eventually. The Acrobat products don't have icons that show two letters on the colored rectangle, unlike almost all other products of Adobe, including the family, i.e., Adobe Creative Suite.

Document Cloud

Adobe announced the "Document Cloud" branding to signify its acceptance of the software as a service and cloud storage model in April 2015. Under this branding, programs get a "DC" suffix. In inclusion, "Reader" was returned to "Acrobat Reader". Acrobat.com was canceled because its aspects were merged into the mobile applications and desktop programs following the announcement of Document Cloud.

• In 2015, the GUI had dominant changes with the announcement of Acrobat DC, which supports the 7 and later versions of Windows, and the 10.9 and later versions of OS X.
• Now, version numbers are recognized by the last two-year digits of the major version, and the year and month are specified; the older version was 12, but DC Acrobat product family version examples are DC June 2016, the 15.016.20045 version, published on 2 June 2016 and Document Cloud Classic in January 2016, the 15.006.30119 version, published on 12 January 2016.
• The Acrobat family is present in two tracks from DC 2015, the Continuous track and the actual track, now called Classic.
• Updates are quarterly published for the Classic track and don't contain new aspects.
• Besides, updates are more frequently issued for the Continuous track and implemented automatically and silently.

The last pre-DC release, Acrobat XI, was upgraded to the 11.0.23 version on 14 November 2017 and ended support a month earlier on 15 October 2017. Adobe published an aspect to make documents easier to understand on phones known as "Liquid Mode", along with its Sensei AI in September 2020.

Purpose of Adobe Reader

The primary function of Adobe Reader is editing, viewing, and creating PDF documents. Also, it can import famous image and document formats and store them as PDF. It is possible for importing the output of a scanner, Windows clipboard contents, or a website.

However, when a document of PDF is created, its original flow and organization can't be modified meaningfully due to the nature of the PDF. Adobe Reader is to change the contents of images and paragraphs, but doing so doesn't recheck the entire document for accommodating a shorter or longer document. Acrobat can change the order of the PDF pages, crop them, manipulate hyperlinks, add comments, digitally sign PDF files, edit many PDF file parts, and ensure its loyalty to such standards as PDF/A.

Products of Adobe Acrobat Reader Family

Current services

• Acrobat Distiller is an application of software to convert documents to Adobe PDF from PostScript format, the native format of the products of the Adobe Acrobat Reader family.
• Adobe Acrobat Reader is a family of web services and application software which is developed by Adobe Inc. for viewing, creating, manipulating, printing, and managing Portable Document Format. Currently, it is present for users with an Adobe ID and a web browser only.
• The full professional version of Acrobat is Acrobat Pro which is developed by Adobe Inc. for editing, creating, manipulating, printing, and managing files in PDF format. Currently, it is available for macOS and Windows users only.
• The freeware Acrobat version is Acrobat Reader which is developed by Adobe Inc. for viewing, creating, filling, printing, and formatting files in PDF format. Currently, it is available for Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows users only.
• The full standard version of Acrobat is Acrobat standard which is developed by Adobe Inc. for editing, creating, manipulating, printing, and managing files in PDF format. Currently, it is available for only Windows users.
• Document Cloud can be described as a component of the Acrobat family which is developed by Adobe Inc. for viewing, creating, saving online, printing, and formatting Portable Document Format. Currently, it is available for users with an Adobe ID and a web browser only.
• Sign & fill is a component of the Acrobat family which is developed by Adobe Inc. for filling, signing, and managing files in PDF format. Currently, it is available only for Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows users.
• Sign (formerly called eSign and EchoSign) is a component of the Acrobat family which is developed by Adobe Inc. for filling, signing, and managing files in PDF format, Currently, it is available only for Android and iOS users.

Discontinued services

• The tools of Acrobat Business are the discontinued element of the Acrobat family that was shared by Adobe Systems with document review and collaboration features.
• Acrobat approval permits users for deploying electronic forms based on the Acrobat PDF.
• Acrobat Capture is known as a document processing utility from Adobe Systems for Windows that can convert a scan of the paper document into a Portable Document Format file along with selectable text from OCR technology.
• Acrobat Element was a very common release of the Acrobat family that was published by Adobe Systems. Its main feature benefit over the Acrobat Reader (free) was the ability for creating liable PDF files through Microsoft Office applications.
• Acrobat Distiller Service is a cancelled server-based utility improved by Adobe Systems to implement centralized high-volume PostScript document conversion to PDF for workgroups.
• Acrobat InProduction can be defined as a tools suite (pre-press) for Acrobat published by Adobe in 2000 to manage PDFs file's pre-flighting and color separation for printing.
• Acrobat eBook Reader is an e-book PDF-based reader developed by Adobe Systems. Many features are available in this service later occurred in Digital Editions.
• Acrobat Reader Touch is an open-source PDF document viewer expanded and published by Adobe Systems on 11 December 2012 for the user interface of Windows Touch.
• Acrobat Messenger can be described as a document utility for the users of Acrobat that was published by Adobe Systems in 2000 to transform paper documents into PDF that can be shared, faxed, and e-mailed online.
• FormsCentrasl was a filling server of a web form for customers with a macOS, a web browser, or Windows and only an Adobe ID. It was abandoned on 28 July 2015 and was substituted by Experience Manager Forms.

Hidden helper tools

• RdrCEF (also called Adobe Reader Cloud Extension Feature) is a tool grouped with Acrobat that executes a process that manages the features of cloud connectivity.
• Acrobat Synchronizer can be described as a tool installed using Acrobat versions. It keeps the Acrobat file's accuracy shipped to Acrobat while executing inside the background.

Supported file formats

The following table includes a few file formats launched and accessed within Adobe Acrobat:

Localization and internationalization

Adobe Acrobat Reader is available in many languages including Ukrainian, Turkish Swedish, Spanish, Russian, Romania, Portuguese, Polish, Norwegian, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Hungarian, Hebrew, Greek, German, French, Finnish, English, Dutch, Danish, Chinese Traditional, Chinese Simplified, Czech, and Arabic. Hebrew and Arabic versions are present from WinSoft International, the localization and internationalization partner of Adobe Systems.

Before Adobe Acrobat Reader DC, separate Hebrew and Arabic versions were specifically developed for these languages, which are written from right to left side normally. These versions contain unique TouchUp properties for managing ligatures, digits paragraph and option direction in the right to left sides of Middle Eastern scripts like Persian, Hebrew, and Arabic as well as the standard left to right sides Indian scripts like Gujarati and Devanagari.

The web capture aspect can convert one webpage or whole website into PDF format files while preserving the original text encoding of the content. Also, Acrobat can copy the text of Hebrew and Arabic to the clipboard of the system in its actual encoding, if the target software is also comfortable with the text encoding, the text will occur in the proper script.

Security

An extensive list of security bulletins for almost all Adobe products and corresponding versions is released on their advisories page and security bulletins and in other corresponding venues. The detailed security update history for every version of Adobe Acrobat Reader has been made public in particular.

• Acrobat Reader has contained support for JavaScript from the 3.02 version onwards.
• The functionality permits a PDF document creator for including code that runs when the document has been read.
• Mischievous PDF files that try to attack security vulnerabilities could be attacked to links over web pages or shared as email attachments.
• On the other side, JavaScript is developed without a direct authorization to the filesystem for making it 'safe' and vulnerability has been reported for abuses like distributing mischievous code from Acrobat programs.

The applications of Adobe had already become the most famous targets of client software for attackers during the last 2009 quarter. McAfee anticipated that Adobe software, especially Flash and Reader would be the main aim for software attacks in 2010.

1. Warning in September 2006

David Kierznowski offered sample PDF files indicating JavaScript vulnerabilities on 2006 September 13. JavaScript can be shown with the embedded URLs and preferences menu that is intercepted by a dialog box of security warning to either block or allow the website from activating.

2. Warning in February 2009

Adobe published a Security Bulletin disclosing JavaScript vulnerabilities in Adobe Acrobat and Reader versions 9 and earlier in 2009 February 19. US-CERT suggested disabling JavaScript within the impacted products of Adobe, canceling the development with web browsers and Windows shell (while carrying out the developed release of de-integration of Internet Explorer), deactivating the indexing services of Adobe and avoiding every PDF file through external sources as a workaround for this problem.

3. Warning in February 2013

Adobe has recognized critical vulnerabilities in Adobe Acrobat XI and Reader for Macintosh (9.5.3 and earlier 9.x releases) and Windows. These vulnerabilities can lead the application to disintegration and potentially permit an attacker for taking control of the impacted system. There have been many reports of these vulnerabilities being abused to trick the users of Windows into clicking over a mischievous PDF file sent in an email message. Adobe suggested users update the installations of their product.

4. Warning in January 2016

Adobe has published security updates for Adobe Reader and Acrobat for Macintosh and Windows. These updates indicate critical vulnerabilities that can potentially permit an attacker for taking control of the impacted system.

Installing Adobe Acrobat Reader on Ubuntu

PDF is an existing file format that is used by individuals and companies for sharing files. When we download any document online, there are so many chances that the documents will be received in PDF format. PDF format facilitates many advantages as compared to other file formats including support for a huge variety of content including images and text, document security, and graphics integrity preservation.

Adobe Acrobat Reader is one of the most frequently used PDF Readers available in the market. It permits users for annotating, printing, viewing, and performing advanced editing options in the documents of PDF format. Adobe Acrobat Reader is present in both premium and free editions. The premium edition comes with extra features for file conversion, scanning, editing, and digital signing among others.

Step 1: Update the System

It's necessary to ensure that our system packages have been updated to their current versions. We can use the following command in the terminal Window for updating our system:

Step 2: Include the i368 Architecture

Adobe Acrobat Reader needs many i386 packages that would not install by default in the 20.04 version of Ubuntu being a previous version. We require to enable the architecture of 32-bit on our Ubuntu system. To do so, we can use the following command in the terminal window to include the i386 architecture:

Step 3: installing software dependencies

We need many additional packages to execute Adobe Acrobat Reader in the 20.04 version of Ubuntu. We need to run the following command for installing the necessary dependencies:

Step 4: Get the binary package of Adobe Acrobat Reader

We need to download the current Debian binary package of Acrobat Reader along with the installed dependencies. To do so, we need to run the following command in the terminal window:

Step 5: Installing Adobe Acrobat Reader

Now that we have downloaded the reader successfully, we can install it using the following command:

Step 6: Launching Adobe Acrobat Reader

Now, we need to go within the Activities menu and find Adobe Acrobat Reader. Then, simply press on the icon.

We can launch Acrobat Reader from the terminal window using the following command: