Some key limitations of earlier versions of Acrobat also have been addressed in the latest version. Nor was there any way to capture information from a PDF file and import it into other documents or applications. The latest version of Acrobat addresses those problems by allowing authors and publishers to make last-minute text and image changes on PDF files, and additionally allows the reuse of text, graphics and table data from PDF files. Finally, the latest version of Acrobat allows PDFs to collect information online with interactive forms, something only HTML files could do before. Because it's not perfect, of course.
Readers have to download the free plug-in to view a PDF file.
But with an estimated 50 million downloads to date, that doesn't seem insurmountable. PDF files can be huge. While a short document optimized for screen can download almost as quickly as an HTML file, longer PDF files that are optimized for printing can take ages to download over a 28K or 56K modem. If most visitors to a site come from the corporate or educational worlds where high-speed lines are more typical, even that might not be a big objection. But plain text files can be handy for distributing newsletters, columns, updates and headlines, and the like to subscribers' e-mail boxes.