Adobe Acrobat

What works

To install I tried 2 different approaches:

1. Running the official install disc under Wine.
2. The method as described earlier by Anonymous User here on WineHQ (http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=7160&iTestingId=63472)  for the Adobe Acrobat Reader.

RESULTS:

1. RUNNING FRESH INSTALL UNDER WINE

Again two different approaches were tried here, i.e. without the Winetricks modules installed (also see http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=7160&iTestingId=63472). This failed, the Adobe AutoPlay Install Program does copy files, but upon installation aborts "due to an unknown error".

Second approach was running the official install disc after the Winetricks addons (e.g. MS C modules, the odbcint.dll copies - see later and http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=7160&iTestingId=63472 for details) installed to fullfill any potential dependencies. This failed too, again with the Adobe AutoPlay Install Program copying files, but upon installation aborting "due to an unknown error".

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2. THE "COPY" METHOD

This install method succeeded. In short, what was done was...

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NEEDED BEFORE START:

• Linux computer with Wine and q4wine (for q4wine >> sudo apt-get install q4wine)
• Microsoft true-type fonts installed; this can be done by copying the fonts from your Windows\ fonts directory.
• A fully installed, functional version of Adobe Acrobat Pro 8 on your windows machine/ partition (in this case XP SP3)
  

In Windows do:

• Copy Acrobat registry entries in Windows registry.
  To obtain, in XP, run regedit and navigate to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> Software -> Adobe“.
  Right click on the Adobe folder and select “Export”, name this file  for example “acrobat.reg”.
• Copy the directories/ files of your installed (Windows) Adobe Acrobat 8 Pro, i.e.
  C:\Program Files\Adobe\
  C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe
  C:\Documents and Settings\$USER\Application Data\Adobe
  C:\windows\system32\odbcint.dll

NOTE that if you have Adobe Photoshop also installed, there can be Photoshop specific files and folders included in your copy.

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IN LINUX:
If you did not configure wine already, run the following to create your own .wine folder.
$ winecfg (or access via Menu> Wine> Configure Wine)

The created XP regedit export file acrobat.reg, is a native windows app and has a few Windows based dependencies.
Use winetricks from the command line to install these. Execute the following:

• $ winetricks msxml6
• $ winetricks gdiplus ( In my case this triggered the message in Terminal: Please download NDP1.0sp2-KB830348-X86-Enu.exe from http://download.cnet.com/NET-Framework-1-0-GDIPLUS-DLL-Security-Update/3000-10250_4-10732223.html). Downloaded this file, placed it in /home/USER/.cache/winetricks/gdiplus, then re-ran $winetricks gdiplus. Worked fine this time.
  
• $ winetricks gecko (In my case returned error message - locale setting not supported. Did not influence end result, but later reinstalled the en_US.UTF8 locale, which seems to be needed.)
• $ winetricks vcrun2005sp1 (installs virtual C 2005 - installed OK)
• $ winetricks vcrun2008 (installs virtual C 2008 - installs OK)
• $ winetricks msxml3 (Other entries here on WineHQ reported that this did not install correctly, but did not cause a problem. In this test case same failure to install)
• $ winetricks atmlib (installs OK)

Copied the following files from the Windows installation into the .wine directory:

• C:\Program Files\Adobe\    ---->    $HOME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Adobe
• C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe    ---->    $HOME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Common Files/Adobe
• C:\Documents and Settings\$USER\Application Data\Adobe    ----> $HOME/.wine/drive_c/users/$USER/Applications Data/Adobe
• C:\windows\system32\odbcint.dll    ---->    $HOME/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32/odbcint.dll

Subsequently copied the earlier made acrobat.reg to the $HOME directory and executed it in Terminal:

$ wine regedit acrobat.reg

This imports the registry entries into the wine registry.

After this Adobe Acrobat 8 Pro loaded. All (tested) components work. In PDFs pages can be added, deleted, highlighted, and comments can be placed, saved (in the PDF), and read. Bookmarks can be made, pages extracted, the META data can be added/ edited, the document can be secured/ locked, preferred view can be preset and saved (including disabling tool and menu bars). OCR works. Typewriter works, forms can be filled in and forms can be made. PDF can be examined (e.g delete META data, hidden text/ content) and PDF can be optimised/ reduced in size). Text and object editing works. Documents can be bundled/ combined/ created from various other separate documents (Combine Files). Although perhaps somewhat  superfluous in Linux, the Export As option does work too. In summary: all program functions seem to work without problem (also see next section What Does Not).

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Since this is the FULL package, you will need to ALL serials. This means:

1. The initial product serial
2. The verification serial
3. The activation serial/ response - Since you already entered 1 and 2 when you installed Adobe Acrobat 8 Pro on your Windows system, you do not have to enter serials 1 and 2 again with the here described COPY METHOD. However, if you then run Acrobat 8 Pro on your Linux system Acrobat will let you know that the trial period of your copy has expired. Hence, you will need to Activate your copy again by contacting Adobe via internet connection. Perhaps the entry of the activation code you used previously during your initial Windows installation also works; didn't test this however.
   

What does not

• Graphics upon start in my case did not function completely; top of the page of the loaded PDF was not displayed. However, scroll down and then up again, then this part of the page is also displayed. This happens every time you start the program. In addition, graphics are slow/ sluggish. Could be resource availability problem (not likely), struggling graphic drivers, or a consequence of simulation approach.
  
• Direct scanner access through Adobe Acrobat (as also available in Adobe Photoshop) - needed connection to TWAIN. However, documents scanned in Xubuntus Simple Scanner, saved as PDF and loaded into Adobe Acrobat works without problems.
  

Workarounds

What was not tested

• PDF printer - this is already available in Xubuntu and of course documents can be saved as PDF, so this sounds a bit silly. PDF Printer is more for the lacking support of Windows programs that can not print/ export as PDF.
  
• PDF distiller - can see no use for it.
• Acrobat Connect Meeting - have no use for it.
• Digital Signing - haven't had any use for it yet. Doubtful if it works, since it seems to depend on Windows components, although Adobe also mentions a separate Adobe Digital ID/ Signing module.
  
• Activation with previously entered Activation code - used net activation via Adobe since an officially purchased copy was used exclusively. The opportunity of a previously used activation code is just mentioned here as an other potential installation method, not as a promotion for the use of any unofficial (e.g. pirated) copy of the program.
  

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments