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New features for legal professionals in Acrobat 8 Professional

• Permanently remove sensitive information (redaction)
• Metadata removal
• Built-in support for Bates numbering
• Easier, more accurate export to Microsoft Word and other formats
• Enable forms saving in Adobe Reader 8 and auto-recognize form fields
• New, intuitive user interface
• Combine multiple files into one PDF package
• True batch printing
• Support for PDF/A archiving standard
• Archive Lotus Notes e-mail
• Manage shared reviews
• Faster Adobe PDF creation and rendering
• Improved OCR engine

Redaction and Metadata removal

Acrobat’s new redaction and metadata removal tools can help mitigate the risk of unintended disclosure of information while submitting legal documents to opposing counsel or to the courts. Unintended disclosure of information via document metadata is a serious concern for law firms. Examples include improperly redacted files where information is obscured, but still present in the file, document attachments, and file properties.

New Redaction Tools in Acrobat 8 Professional allow text and images to be easily and permanently removed

Acrobat 8 Professional will also scan an Adobe PDF file for specified types of hidden content, provide a list of what it found, and then allow you to easily remove some or all of that content before you publish the document. This gives legal professionals greater confidence that the document they publish only contains only the intended content and not additional, hidden content.

Built-in support for Bates numbering

Bates numbering is a method of applying identifying labels to a set of related documents — typically legal documents associated with a court case. Each page in each document is assigned a sequential Bates number that uniquely identifies it while also establishing its relationship to other Bates-numbered pages. A Bates number appears as a header or footer on each page of each document.

Acrobat 8 Professional makes it easy to apply Bates numbers to a set of Adobe PDF documents. Simply browse and choose the set of Adobe PDF files, and then specify the appearance of the Bates number on each page, including size/style, leading zeros, starting page number, prefix, and suffix. Acrobat 8 Professional will apply the Bates numbers in sequential order to all pages of all documents. Acrobat even allows you to resize page content so that the Bates numbering doesn’t overwrite content. Acrobat’s automated Bates numbering provides a huge time saving to legal professionals, and also provides consistent and flexible numbering across all court documents.

Combine multiple files into one PDF package

Acrobat 8 Professional allows you to create an Adobe PDF “package” — a group of multiple documents packaged into a single Adobe PDF file, yet retain the properties of individual documents. With an Adobe PDF package, you choose an Adobe PDF cover sheet, and then all other documents are attached to the cover sheet. When you open the package, you can access the cover sheet as well as a individual files in a sortable, editable table of contents. All the files in that package can be searched, printed, or individually extracted. You can even add documents to the package after it has been created.

Using an Adobe PDF package, legal professionals can associate related project files, such as an eBrief a "deal book" and a client document package, in one document that can be read by anyone with the free Adobe Reader software. At the same time, individual files in the package can be encrypted, digitally signed, removed, or added, so that each recipient of the package can read or access only the relevant files for that person.

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