Best Free Adobe Acrobat Resources & Tutorials

Many professionals are eager to learn Adobe Acrobat. Still, they hesitate because of the perceived up-front costs. Advanced or intermediate learners learning the advanced features of Adobe Acrobat will need to pay to acquire a paid version of the program. However, a surprising amount of free resources are available to help beginners get the hang of this exciting program. 

Read on to learn more about the different types of free resources and tutorials available to help you learn Adobe Acrobat. 

What is Adobe Acrobat?

Adobe Acrobat is the most commonly used application for reading, displaying, and editing documents in Adobe’s portable document format (PDF). The PDF file extension is designed as a universal text and image display system that can display on any machine, regardless of what applications, hardware, or operating system you are using. Adding the extension makes Adobe Acrobat a vital tool for cross-platform collaboration and design processes. It is also essential for securely authorizing, signing, and archiving important documents, including transcripts, tax filings, and other legal documents. 

Adobe is also constantly striving to ensure that Acrobat is more than just a PDF reader. While there is a freeware version of the application to let any user read documents, Acrobat Pro lets users edit, manipulate, and otherwise prepare PDF documents for distribution. Importantly, it also allows users to convert PDFs to word documents, excel spreadsheets, or even jpegs, which is an integral part of optimizing specific professional processes. Between these features and essential quality-of-life benefits, such as combining documents into a single PDF, compressing PDFs, and automated features ensuring documents meet specific critical legal regulations, Adobe Acrobat is one of the most versatile and vital baseline tools available.

Read more about what Adobe Acrobat is and why you should learn it. 

What Can You Do with Adobe Acrobat?

Adobe Acrobat is a versatile software program that lets users create and share PDF files that can be read and edited on almost any device. The program is important for both collaborative design work and for documenting and archiving important documents. Using Adobe Acrobat makes remote work more accessible and efficient since Acrobat includes authentication and documentation features that allow users to encrypt, protect, sign, and notarize documents without meeting with a signee in-person. These built-in collaboration features can improve both workflow efficiency and the kinds of work that is practical for a given company or organization.

Adobe Acrobat is also one of the most commonly used tools for archiving and preserving important documents. PDF readers can produce high-quality scans of physical documents and display them on almost any modern device. This ability makes Adobe Acrobat a valuable tool for making rare or sensitive documents more accessible to the public. It also ensures that individuals can easily create and access backup versions of physical documents they want to keep protected. Since Acrobat also has significant privacy and security features, learning Acrobat is an excellent way to ensure that these documents are appropriately protected when you need others to access them.

Program Versions

Acrobat Reader is a free version of the application, though it is significantly limited in its advanced functionalities. This version is ideal for anyone who is simply looking to read and perform basic annotations on PDF files. It is available for both Windows and Mac devices.

Adobe Standard is designed with individual users who aim to use Acrobat in a professional capacity. This version of the program allows you to create fillable form documents, add signatures to PDFs and add passwords and other security features to your PDF files. Licensing this program version will cost users about twelve dollars a month, and this version is only available for Windows devices.

Adobe Pro includes all of the features of Adobe Standard and is available on iOS devices. In addition, Pro users will be able to convert PDFs to other file types, such as word or excel documents, and they will be able to compare multiple versions of PDFs to track differences and changes between versions. Pro also offers increased privacy features, such as a redaction tool, and integration with other Adobe applications like Illustrator or XD. This version of the program will cost users approximately twenty dollars a month for individual use or bundled with other Adobe software applications for about fifty-five dollars a month.

Free resources

Learners who want to learn the basic features of Adobe Acrobat but don’t want to enroll in a full training seminar may want to consider taking advantage of free training programs. These training programs are excellent for those who feel they need to get a basic grasp of working with PDF applications but aren’t sure they need to learn the more advanced elements of the program. These courses tend to be cursory overviews of the features and functions of programs like Acrobat; for many professionals, that is all they will need.

Noble Desktop offers free Adobe courses, including an Introduction to Adobe Creative Cloud video seminar. In this class, beginners will learn the basics of Adobe Acrobat and various programs that collectively make up the Adobe Creative Cloud. This course is designed with prospective designers in mind. However, its overview of the functionalities of Acrobat will assist students who otherwise aren’t interested in learning tools like Photoshop. This course intends to ease learners into more professional training programs, so it is also a worthwhile resource for students who intend to learn Acrobat to complement other Adobe Creative Cloud skills.

Prospective students may also wish to explore their options for free Adobe Acrobat courses through service providers such as Udemy or Coursera. These training courses will vary from broad overviews of the Adobe catalog to narrow video tutorials covering the basics of Acrobat as a standalone program. Future students may also wish to consult the free tutorial options available directly from Adobe.

Key Insights

• Beginners learning Acrobat may want to take advantage of free training resources and tutorials, especially those learning how to use the freeware version of the program.
• There are a few different versions of Acrobat available, so students should check which version they are using to judge what free tutorials are available.
• Many free training resources are available for learning Acrobat. Some of these cover many professional programs, and some focus on Acrobat.
• Once students have taken advantage of these free training resources, they should consider enrolling in a professional Acrobat training program through Noble Desktop. These training seminars are available both in-person and live online.

Learn Adobe Acrobat with Hands-on Training at Noble Desktop

Individuals hoping to learn Adobe Acrobat will have a few options available. Noble Desktop offers private and group Adobe Acrobat training in-person at Noble’s Manhattan campus and online in live digital classrooms. These courses allow students to learn advanced Acrobat skills with the assistance of live instructors. Enrollees will work with hands-on examples that mirror the kinds of real-world applications for which they will employ Acrobat, and can ask questions and receive direct feedback from their instructors. Enrollees attending these courses will benefit from small class sizes, even online. Anyone who takes a course through Noble can retake that course within a calendar year, giving individuals s even more opportunities to master Adobe Acrobat.

Those wanting to learn Adobe Acrobat can enroll in Noble’s Adobe Acrobat Training course. This course is beginner-friendly and designed to get students comfortable with the key functionalities of Acrobat that they require in their day-to-day lives. This course will get new students up to speed by teaching them how to edit, merge, combine, arrange, share, and protect PDF files using Acrobat. This class is a great way to learn the ins and outs of Adobe Acrobat quickly. In this course, students will learn everything they need to know about storing, annotating, and working with PDF files. 

Another advantage to learning Adobe Acrobat is that it is part of the Adobe Creative Cloud suite of tools and is therefore both heavily integrated with those applications and is one of the best ways to display designs on any device. Creative professionals, in particular, will want to learn Adobe Acrobat as part of their training in other Adobe Creative programs. Students learning skills like Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign will want to ensure they know how to improve their workflow efficiency using Acrobat.