How far can we rely on Adobe Acrobat Reader?

Question

Hi
We are contemplating to move to the Paperless Office solution with Adobe Acrobat as the backbone.
Only 2-3 people in the office will be responbible for scanning documents (using the scanning facility provided by Adobe Acrobat) and merging them with existing PDF files by inserting pages etc.
We were wondering if it would be advisable to get 2-3 licenses of Adobe Acrobat full version for these people while the rest of the users could probably do with Adobe Acrobat Reader as they would only read the PDF files containing the scanned documents and search for information inside.
(1) Kindly advise me if deployment of 2-3 licenses of Adobe Acrobat full-version for the concerned users and Adobe Acrobat Reader for the rest is a good solution.
(2) Also, I would like to know if Adobe Acrobat Reader offers the same extent of search facilities as the full version (for instance search through index).
Thank you for your usual good advices.
Ashvin

Answer 1

Acrobat and Reader have a search and a find facility. The find facility is the same. Once the pdf file or files have been cataloged/indexed then the search facility is the same, but Reader cannot create the catalogue and/or index. I find the facility to catalog and search through a group of documents to be invaluable. The set of documents that need to be indexed may vary by user. If your two or three Acrobat powered users are willing to catalog many of the files for your users, then it is workable. If your users really use large documents the search facility is crucial. I regularly need to search for things in a document that is over 500 pages long, find just takes too long. Seach is really crucial and saves time.