PDF for Lawyers

Sign contracts on your iOS device

Adobe has just released the EchoSign app for iOS, which enables legally binding contracts to be signed with a click. The app is free, but the EchoSign service costs money. It's free for one user who only signs 5 times per month or less. The next tier of service is $14.95/month and allows one user to sign unlimited times. Not sure if this is of use to most lawyers, but some will undoubtedly be interested.

Adobe's online form tool gets useful a new feature

Adobe has been developing some interesting online stuff (e.g. SendNow, which I've covered in a previous blog post). FormsCentral is an online tool that lets you build, distribute and collect forms (and form data). There are other folks who are doing online forms, most notably Google.

I've used Google's form tool and find it sufficient for basic needs. Where it (and I would guess other) online form tools fall completely apart is when it comes to gathering attachments along with a form.

Why would you gather attachments? Well, let's say you are an employer and you're using an online form to collect responses from potential employees. (Yes, a form can be used to accept applications. A form can be used to gather any responses or data.)

You can collect these kinds of responses using Google Docs' Form tool. But you can't collect PDF resumes or recommendation letters at the same time. Up until now Adobe's FormCentral tool didn't let you do that either. But today Adobe announced this new attachment feature as part of their FormCentral service.

I can see a law firm making use of this tool as a way of getting basic information from a new client (after some meaningful initial human contact, of course). And the feature that let's clients upload documents along with the information gathering might be useful too.

For more information about FormsCentral (as well as pricing) click here.

Adobe no longer developing Flash plug-ins - what does this mean?

Adobe announced yesterday that it would stop developing Flash plugins for mobile browsers, which ultimately signals the end of Flash. What does this mean for Adobe? Read Dan Frommer's excellent take.

Adobe's SendNow is quite useful for lawyers

Increasingly attorneys who litigate are producing documents to opposing counsel via email as PDFs. Or, at least they try to. Then if the file size of the PDFs is too large, they resort to using some kludgy solution like Dropbox or some other online repository. Up until recently, that's what I did.

Adobe's SendNow service is a web-based tool that anyone can use for free, with some limitations. With the Free Plan are limited to file sizes of 100 Mbs, and you get a maximum total online storage of 500 Mbs. Also, recipients have 7 days to download the files. For most small productions that's enough.

The Basic Plan gives you 2 Gbs for file transfers, and up to 5Gbs of storage. But the real kicker is that it also gives you detailed tracking of when the files were downloaded and by whom. Thus, in effect, it's like having an audit trail of the fact that the documents were produced on a certain date. Litigators surely want this, and I would think that they'd happily pay the $10/month fee.

Let me make it clear how the detailed tracking works. First, the entire history of all of your productions are stored online under your SendNow account. Second, each time a recipient successfully downloads a PDF document production you are notified by email.

If you need more than 5Gbs of online storage you can opt for the Plus Plan, and get 20 Gbs of storage. You'll still be limited to productions at 2 Gbs. The price is $15/month.

The SendNow feature is built into Acrobat X, so if you have the latest version of Acrobat you can issue the production from that program without having to navigate to the web. You may still have to log into your Adobe SendNow account, but it's certainly very convenient to do this from within the program that you no doubt used to prepare your online document production.

If you don't have Acrobat X you can download the SendNow Desktop application for free, and use that program. SendNow supports many file types besides just PDFs (e.g. Microsoft Office docs, audio and video files etc.).

The only caveat about SendNow is that its use is limited to one user (since it's tied to an individul Adobe ID, and the Terms of Use don't permit several people to piggyback on that one ID). The recipients of your SendNow production do not need to have a SendNow account.

Web capture - How fast can you do it in Acrobat X?

Capturing web pages is not something that comes up every day for users of Acrobat X, but I recently had to use this feature to download a 7 page website. Acrobat X (on my Mac) took what seemed to me to be an inordinately long time: 5 minutes and 10 seconds for the 7 page site. I tested it in Acrobat 9 (also on my Mac) and got the same result.

I decided to use another program: PDFPenPro, which is a $99 Mac-only program that does most of what Acrobat does. I was astonished at the difference: it only took 5 seconds to capture the same website using PDFPenPro. That's an improvement of something like 500%, maybe more. I'm not a mathematician. 

All I know is I won't be using Acrobat's web capture for any site that I can snag with PDFPenPro.

Adobe's new iOS PDF app is lame

Adobe has just launched an application for iOS called CreatePDF, which lets you create PDF files from an iPad or iPhone. The app costs $10 and is available in the Apple iTunes store.

I’ve been waiting for Adobe to create an iOS application that provides much of the same functionality as Acrobat does on a desktop computer. And, while I appreciate that Adobe has finally taken a step in that direction, it’s a pretty lame step. I believe there are other iOS apps that have this functionality, but I’m not sure because this isn’t something I have a great need to do on my iPad or iPhone.

Apparently, the first few commenters on the app's page on the Apple iTunes site are also unimpressed. Here's what I think the market would like to see from Adobe in an iOS application:

• Dropbox integration, with full bi-directional synching.
• Ability to save signature stamps, and to affix them to a PDF, and then flatten the signature.
• Bookmarking (ideally with ability to highlight text in a text-based PDF and create bookmark with that text.
• Commenting (sticky notes, underlining and highlighting for sure)
• Search of a PDF, including comments and bookmarks.

Feel free to chime in with your comments and suggestions below.

Is it possible Adobe has no interest in developing an iOS version of Acrobat? Seems strange, but maybe they’ve ceded the market to independent developers. For those of you who use iOS apps to manage PDFS, what’s your favorite application? And why is it useful to you?

Update on Acrobat X and Casemap

The reader who had the problem with using the Casemap plug-in after he upgraded to Acrobat X contacted the folks at Casesoft. He was told that they're working on a fix, but don't expect to have it ready until sometime in January. So if you use the Casemap plug-in for Acrobat I would recommend you not upgrade to Acrobat X until this situation has been definitively resolved.

Frankly I'm surprised that Casesoft has not disclosed this problem on its website. Presumably they were given a beta-release of Acrobat X and have been aware of the problem with making their plug-in work with the new version of Acrobat. Hopefully a fix will be developed quickly, and hopefully no one else will get jammed because they upgrade to Acrobat X and then find themselves not having the plug-in available.

Possible problem using Casemap plug-in with Acrobat X

One of this blog's readers who began using Acrobat X alerted me to a problem he was having using the "Send to Casemap" plug-in for Acrobat now that he has upgraded. Many of you are familiar with Casemap, a wonderful program (Windows only) that allows litigators to manage their case information. Casemap allows lawyers to extract information from PDFs easily and then send that information to Casemap quickly using the aforementioned plug-in.

If you have used Casemap with this plug-in you will know how indispensable it can be. So, for those of you who depend on it I suggest you not upgrade to Acrobat X until you can determine from the folks at Casesoft (owned by LexisNexis) that a new plug-in has been developed for Acrobat X. I will get in touch with them and update this post once I find out what Casemap's position is, but I wanted to put out this alert now to let folks know about this possible problem now.

I'm sure it will be worked out soon; this is just one of the side-effects of having an upgrade to piece of software that has been configured to communicate with another piece of software that is owned by a different company. Stay tuned...

Adobe Reader on your smartphone?

If you yearn to read PDFs on your smartphone there have been various options (not all of them great); but today Adobe announced that its Reader program is available for use on Android phones. It supports portrait and landscape mode, and pinch to zoom. Even better is the 'reflow' mode that makes it easy to read the text on the phone. Best of all the app is free.

When will Adobe Reader be available for the iPhone? Who knows. Adobe says it plans to develop the Reader for 'other platforms,' but given the animosity between Adobe and Apple right now I wouldn't hold my breath.

Should you buy the Neat Receipts scanner?

I have to admit being intrigued by the Neat Receipts folks, which I first began noticing whenever I was connecting through major hub airports.  Their scanners typically sell for about $200, and they pitch their product in a way that has to resonate with the average business traveller.  If you're on the road constantly then you probably have lots of paperwork to fill out, mostly receipts.  The idea of having a scanner that would easily capture those little pieces of paper, and then populate your expense reports seems too good to be true.

I would have been tempted to buy one, but they didn't have a Mac version when I first encountered them.  By the time they did come out with a Mac version, I had enough time to come to my senses.  Even if the scanner worked flawlessly, I already have a Fujitsu ScanSnap M1500 (and I've used the Windows version).  The ScanSnap has a very small footprint and can be used to scan large batches of documents, as well as small scraps of paper like business cards and receipts.  It's only $200 more and it comes with a full version of Acrobat (normally a $299 purchase).  True, the ScanSnap has to be powered on its own, and its not something you'd toss in a travel bag.  But, seriously, can't you just wait til you get home and scan all your receipts?  Do you really need to carry around a slick little tech toy just to have immediate scanning gratification?

A few months ago I learned that the Neat Company was making its 'receipt organizing' software available for Mac users as a standalone product.  Even though they sell the scanners, they were willing to let Mac users try their software if they had a ScanSnap (there is no software-only deal for Windows users).  I plunked down the $79 and downloaded the software and set it up with my ScanSnap.  It worked okay, but it often made mistakes in reading the numeric values on the receipts.  If I was ever in a position to need automatic calculation of receipts maybe I'd be more inclined to put up with the hiccups.  But, for me, the only thing I need to do with receipts is scan them so if I need to prove I bought something later on I can.  I've had no problem using my scans to do this.

I had dismissed the idea of the Neat Receipts scanner completely until I read this review yesterday by David Pogue, the technology columnist for the New York Times.  I have a great deal of respect for Pogue, and almost always agree with him.  This time I'm not sure.  Maybe he's right and the Neat Receipt scanner really is a wonderful piece of magic for folks who have lots of receipts.  I gather he's using the Windows version, which the Amazon reviews suggest (to me, at least) is better than the Mac version (not surprising since the Windows version has been out longer).

But, then again, I wonder if Pogue knows about the ScanSnap.  I bet if he did then his enthusiasm for the Neat Receipts scanner might be diluted a bit.  I have been using ScanSnaps since they came out.  I had been looking for a basic scanner that was reliable and would allow me to scan batches of documents easily.  Every ScanSnap I've had has been a workhorse.  I consider the ScanSnap to be ridiculously cheap considering how powerful, reliable and flexible it is.  The fact that it comes with a full version of Adobe Acrobat makes it a steal.

I understand that some people are always looking for some 'holy grail' technology and certainly the Neat Receipts scanner will seem like that to most people.  And maybe it is a great tool.  If you are only going to scan receipts and you have a Windows computer then you might love it as much as David Pogue does.  Not everyone loves their Neat Receipts scanner, but you'd be hard pressed to find people that don't absolutely adore their ScanSnap (just check the Amazon comments if you need confirmation).  Windows version, or Mac version.  They both rock!!!

Article Links: Fujitsu Scanap 1500 (Mac version)

          Fujitsu ScanSnap 1500 (Windows version)

          Neat Receipts (Mac version)

          Neat Receipts (Windows version)

Update: After I posted this I got a message from someone alerting me to a service called Expensify, which is a new company that came in 2nd in the TechCrunch Demo contest.  It's free to try, and seems pretty cool as a really convenient and simple way to keep track of lots of expense reports.  If I travelled a lot and needed to do expense reports I'd try this before I bought a specialty scanner.  In fact, I might try this anyway.  If anyone else has tried it I'd love to hear their comments.  You gotta love their slogan: "Expensify - Expense reports that don't suck!"

Another Update: Sam Glover at Lawyerist has a great review of the Neat Receipts scanner. Bottom line: it's not as configurable as the ScanSnap and not as useful if you're serious about being paperless.