Acrobat software available for Palm computers

Handheld computer users now have access to a whole new world of information.

Adobe Systems Inc. announced it has developed a version of Acrobat Reader software specifically for handheld devices running Palm Inc.'s operating system. Acrobat software is widely used to view documents in their original format, even if the end user does not have access to the software used to create them.

Many government Web sites post documents on the Web in Acrobat's PDF, requiring only that end-users download the reader software, which is available free from Adobe. Acrobat Reader for Palm OS also can be downloaded free.

"This was an untapped need that we finally provided a solution for," said John Lin, product manager in Adobe's e-paper solutions group. "There's a lot of documentation in the government space that people want to make reference to...especially field service representatives with manuals or technical documentation in PDF format, and they don't want to carry a laptop around."

A number of federal, state and local government agencies tested the public beta version of the product released in April, and provided valuable feedback to Adobe that went into improving the final product, Lin said.

Acrobat Reader for Palm OS is available for Windows 98, NT, ME and 2000 (users must have Palm Desktop 3.0.1 or higher) and devices with Palm OS 3.1 or higher and a minimum available memory of 200K.