A couple of other features that make working on a Palm handheld easier are the full screen mode, which hides the navigation tools and frees up more screen space, as well as the ability to hide images while viewing a document. You can also scroll up and down on any given page simply by dragging your stylus up or down. There are a bevy of other tips, tricks, and shortcuts in the Poweruser_Tricks.pdf and UserGuide.pdf included with the program, so I won't go into those details now.

Now to wrap it all up
Acrobat Reader for Palm OS is a powerful application that has enormous potential as both an enterprise tool and a personal ebook reader. I must admit, when I first heard that Adobe was porting Acrobat Reader to the Palm OS, I was quite skeptical. However, after I began using the public beta, my skepticism quickly faded!

I was particularly impressed with the approach to handling tables. If you have ever used AvantGo to view a Web page that used HTML tables to present information, you know how awkward and hard to read that solution can be on a Palm handheld's screen. On the other hand, this "pop-up table" technique keeps the table minimized and out of the way until you want to view it, at which point you can scroll up and down, right and left, gathering the needed information.

On the other hand, one missing feature that disappointed me was lack of support for commercial, encrypted PDF ebooks. For those who have used the Acrobat eBook Reader (for either Macintosh or Windows), you know that the PDFs are downloaded directly into the application and cannot be moved to another computer. After all, you have purchased a license for one copy of the title in question. However, Adobe is currently working with its ebook publishers to allow users to purchase titles that are licensed for both the desktop and the Palm handheld. Of course, there are still several questions to resolve before this can happen.

Another issue is the lack of optimized PDF files, but this problem will fade over time as the use of Acrobat 5 increases. Of course, creating optimized, tagged PDF files is still a bit of a challenge, as this is a new standard. Currently, the only tools available are the Web Capture utility in Acrobat 5 for Macintosh and Windows; the PDF Maker utility in the Windows version, which only works with Word 2000, Excel 2000, and PowerPoint 2000; and the recently released Adobe PageMaker 7.0, which can also save files as tagged PDFs. Adobe has stated that future versions of their software, such as FrameMaker, InDesign, Illustrator, and others will fully support tagged PDFs as well.

Also, as ebook support comes to Acrobat Reader for Palm OS, a number of features from the desktop ebook reader program will likely follow, including the ability to highlight text and insert bookmarks and annotations, which would allow for mobile document mark-up and review. Soon you may have one less reason to haul your laptop with you on that next business trip!

I was extremely impressed with what this program has to offer. The desktop conduit software is currently only available for Windows, although I've been told that a Macintosh conduit is in the works and development is progressing nicely. All in all, Adobe has certainly laid a solid foundation for future growth in the handheld market.

David Gewirtz is the author of How To Save Jobs and Where Have All The Emails Gone? For more than 20 years, he has analyzed current, historical, and emerging issues relating to technology, competitiveness, and policy. David is the Editor-in-Chief of the ZATZ magazines, is the Cyberterrorism Advisor for the International Association for Counterterrorism and Security Professionals, and is a member of the instructional faculty at the University of California, Berkeley extension. He can be reached at david@zatz.com and you can follow him at http://www.twitter.com/DavidGewirtz.