| One of our pet hates is pop-ups. They are intrusive, annoying and catastrophic to productivity. Not to mention that they are (nearly always) irrelevant. So here’s an annoying one you might need to circumvent. |
For years the Microsoft Office apps (other office suites are available!) have had the ability to export their content direct to an Adobe Acrobat file (a PDF in the jargon).
 Microsoft Excel exporting to PDF in the good old-fashioned way. This is a very useful tool. Right back at the beginning, Adobe made the strategic decision to make the software required to read their PDF files freely available. The result (as is always the case when a technology is made free-to-use) it rapidly became the de-facto standard for exchanging documents. And everybody did well out of this, including Adobe – who have built an empire on the back of the universality of their file format. |
Things change, which often entails the bean-counters getting into positions of management.
 Let’s bamboozle our users. At which point they starting making strategic decisions based on short-term & irrelevant cash considerations, ignoring the fundamental underpinnings of their business (looking at you Boeing!). And so. If you have the ‘free’ Acrobat Reader software installed on your PC, Adobe will now try to hijack the Office ‘export’ function to try to bamboozle you into signing up for their premium service. |
What to do? There are three main options.
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| Meanwhile, make a cup of tea & enjoy the beauty of Autumn. |