Adobe Reader 8
With the release of Reader 8, Adobe has introduced several new features—a refined interface with user-customizable toolbars, improved text visibility, a text-to-speech feature, the ability to fill and submit forms, save data, and digitally sign documents—and improved some existing functionality.
User Interface
Navigation: Toolbars and Navigation Panel
The new interface allows more of the form or document that you are viewing to be seen or read without using scroll bars as was required in the past. In the new version of Reader, the navigation and page layout tools have been removed from the bottom of the Reader window and placed on the primary toolbar or the navigation panel. This move produces a less cluttered window because Adobe is deliberately trying a “task based interface” that can be customized to the needs or workflows of the user—you can add the tools that best fit your work style to the toolbar or navigation panel.
Increasing the viewable area is not the only interface change in Adobe Reader 8. Adobe streamlined the toolbar in Reader 8 and removed many buttons that had been present in earlier versions of Reader, opting to keep these functions in the menu. For comparison, Figures 1 and 2 show the toolbars for Reader 7 and Reader 8. Comparing the two toolbars, it is clear that Reader 7 had more tools on the toolbar (open, search, select tool, magnify, etc) than does reader 8. In part, these changes in the toolbar allowed Adobe to improve other aspects of Reader, such as adding an integrated search bar (see below) or adding navigation buttons to move within a document.
Figure 1 Adobe Reader 7 toolbar
Figure 2 Adobe Reader 8 toolbar
However, it is possible to customize your toolbar in Reader 8. From the Tools menu, choose Customize Toolbars.
Figure 3 Access the Customize Toolbars command through the Tools menu
The More Tools window will appear with a list of available tools that you can select by checking the boxes. These tools will then appear in the toolbars that are active.
Figure 4 The More Tools window displays a list of available tools
The Navigation Panel is different as well and replaces the tabs that were arrayed along the left hand side of the window in Reader 7. This panel is also customizable (right-click in the Navigation Panel to bring up the tools) to access features related to enhancing the document as well as accessing the various help files.
Figure 5 The Navigation Panel (and additional tools) in Reader 8
View modes
There are several changes designed to make reading documents in Reader easier. Under the View Menu, you can choose the Full Screen Mode, the Reading Mode—which toggles between the default view and one that removes the task bar on the left hand of the screen—or Page Display. The Page Display allows you to choose from several modes. For example, the Two-Up mode displays a page spread without showing all the “white” space.
Figure 6 The View menu's Page Display settings
Zoom features
Under the Tools menu you can use the Loupe Tool button to magnify a specific section of the document in another window while the Zoom tools—Marquee and Dynamic—magnify the entire document.
Figure 7 Tools menu Zoom features
There are also new Pan and Zoom features in Reader 8. Additionally, within the preferences there are accessibility settings that can be set for creating a default zoom level and page layout style.
Figure 8 Pan & Zoom in operation
Read out loud (Text-to-Speech)
To improve accessibility for a wide range of computer users, Reader incorporates an improved a text-to-speech feature called “Read out loud.” To enable this feature choose Read Out Loud from the View menu. Once activated you can chose to read a single page or the entire document, To set this feature’s preferences for volume, pitch, and speech rate, go to the Edit menu, choose Preferences, then Reading from the Categories list.
As good as this feature is, there are some quirks. While the speech does pause for commas, colons and periods, there are not the natural pauses one would expect when reading a text aloud. Additionally, unless the document is specifically formatted for the “Read out loud” capability, extraneous elements, like ISSNs or the footers on each page, are read aloud. Finally, there are no buttons or toolbars to pause or stop the reading; rather you must use keystrokes or select Pause or Stop from the Read Out Loud portion of the View menu.
Expanded Printing options
There is a new printing option in Reader that allows "Booklet Printing." It orders the pages so that when you fold the stack of pages it will be a little booklet. Choose Print from the File menu. In the Page Handling section of the Print window, select Booklet Printing from the Page Scaling list. The resulting pages are printed in such a way that they make a ready pamphlet without a great deal of fuss on the user part. One thing to note though is that this feature does produce the best results if your printer is capable of double-sided printing.
Figure 9 Booklet printing configuration
Find and Search
Reader had an excellent Find feature, but it, too, has been improved. There is now a Find bar as in Internet Explorer, where you enter the word or phrase to be found. There is a drop-down feature where you can specify options and locations to search within the document currently open.
Figure 10 Reader's Find tool (green box in toolbar)
As convenient as this Find feature is, there is also built in Search functionality that allows you to search all PDF documents in a given folder or drive. There are also settings/options for advanced searching.
Figure 11 Reader's Search tool
Other New Features
Save As, Reviewing tools, Comments
If the author/creator has assigned the rights, you can use the Save a Copy command to save the document or form with the filled-in fields intact. You can also do a Save as Text operation so that just the filled-in data is saved in a text document. Digital signatures, commenting tools, and drawing mark-up tools are active as well if usage rights are assigned by the creator. In addition to digital signatures, there are web-based tools related to security and encryption that can be activated for Reader.
Reader has review and markup tools that allow you to view and accurately place callout and cloud markups as you
apply them as well as highlight/cross out/underline text, stamps, pencil, add comments on sticky notes, or indicate
text edits. When enabled by the document’s author, these functions can be accessed via the Comments icon 
in the task pane or by going to the View menu, pointing to Navigation Panels,
and selecting Comments. Additionally, these annotations can be saved and shared with others reviewers (in
conjunction with LiveCycle server).
RSS Feeds
In a nod to the pervasiveness of the internet, Reader has been given a built-in RSS reader by Adobe. From the View Menu choose Review Tracker, and then the Subscription window appears (see Fig. 12). Click the RSS button on the left hand toolbar, then click the Subscribe button towards the top of the window to add an RSS feed.
Figure 12 RSS feeds
RSS, Really Simple Syndication, is an XML-based format for distributing internet content, such as news headlines
or blogs, in the form of hyperlinks. RSS content can be read by using a “feed reader” or “aggregator”,
such as that in Adobe Reader or Internet Explorer. A benefit of using RSS is the ability to retrieve the latest content
from web sites that you are interested in by subscribing to a feed, not visiting or searching the site. To subscribe to a
feed, enter the feed’s link into a feed reader or aggregator or click the RSS icon that you see on a web site:
, 
, or 
. The feed reader
checks the subscribed feeds regularly and updates any new content that it encounters and generates a list for you to peruse.
Performance Boosts
Reader now preserves existing user preferences when updating from a previous version so that previous usability, security, and permissions that were set do not have to be manipulated again.
Reader also features graphics acceleration on supported systems that improves 2D performance, especially when scrolling through a document with many graphics. Another improvement, because of the 2D changes, relates to measurement recalculation of lines or shapes if the start or end point is moved. These measurements will snap to lines, intersections, or corners.
Conclusion
While Reader remains one of the essential applications on our computers, Adobe has made some significant changes to the program that should make using PDF files more convenient and capable of being manipulated while being easier to view.