Adobe began shipping Adobe Creative Suite 3.3 and Adobe Acrobat 9 on Wednesday, ahead of the company’s planned July release. The new Creative Suite bundles are still available as Design Premium, Design Standard, Web Premium, and Master Collection, and now include Acrobat Professional 9.
The new version of Acrobat Professional includes Flash support, enhanced collaboration tools like PDF Portfolios, and improved print production tools.
PDF Portfolios lets Acrobat users bundle documents, images and videos together as packages with summaries, create PDF forms and collect and analyze form data without requiring IT department involvement. Portfolios are compatible with the new Acrobat.com hosted services that support document collaboration.
Acrobat Pro 9 also includes new preflighting and auto correction features for print production environments. It supports RGB and CMYK conversions, spot color remapping, and overprint preview. Version 9 includes an Object Inspector for reviewing the metadata associated with any selected object, can identify a wide range of differences in document versions, and offers full support for PDF/A, PDF/X, PDF/X-4p, PDF/X-5 and PDF/E.
Adobe Acrobat Pro 9 is priced at US$449, or $159 as an upgrade from Acrobat Pro 8. Upgrades from Creative Suite 3 to Creative Suite 3.3 cost $159 and include Acrobat Pro 9 along with Adobe Fireworks CS3.