gDoc

I met Thomas Müller yesterday, a veteran PDF expert based in Düsseldorf who wrote one of the first, if not the first, third-party books about Acrobat 3.0. Thomas is a self-confessed Acrobat power user (he knows all the keyboard shortcuts by heart) and has built a consulting business on his expertise.

We wanted to get his take on gDoc Fusion, and his reaction surprised me. When I’ve shown the product to other Acrobat experts, their initial response is often muted. They tend to view gDoc Fusion through the lens of Acrobat, and don’t appreciate the ease of use and intuitive nature of the interface. Thomas did – he immediately saw the benefit of the innovative user interface (UI) ideas embodied in Fusion, and their value to the user, particularly a first-time or occasional user. This was refreshing – often, users who know a software product so well they could work it in their sleep confuse familiarity with ease-of-use, but Thomas recognises that the product he knows inside out, i.e. Acrobat, is not at all obvious to the first time user.

Thomas is not alone in his enthusiasm; we have been getting positive feedback from the many journalists we have met in the last couple of days. I’m looking forward to more feedback when the product is fully released.

Links for Thomas Müller: www.value-netzwerk.de and www.pdfzone.de