Acrobat DC vs Acrobat Pro XI (11.0.20) with Pitstop 2017

[RMPrepress]

We are contemplating finally moving to Acrobat DC.
We are running 11.0.20 right now on all 6 of our MacPro stations and our Windows 7 station.
We are also running Pitstop Workgroup Manager 2017 and have Pitstop Pro 2017 on all stations.
Five of the Mac Pro's are running OS 10.11.6 and one is on 10.6.8.

What are the pros and cons of moving to DC?
We have Adobe CC 2017 on all stations as well.

All advice and feedback is appreciated thank you!

[Joe]

Pro: 64-bit means it is quite a bit faster.

Con: Everything is not where it used to be so you will have to do some searching.

When they first released it I hated and it had a lot of nasty bugs but the updates have fixed the obvious bugs. But the bugs that Adobe calls features are never going to be fixed (shift+click with Output preview open creates a new sticky note instead of adding to a selection so you need to close output preview to add to a selection. That was in Acrobat XI too though so it isn't specific to DC). As in previous versions it still crashes if you open and close and re-open output preview and turn off separations but not quite as often.

I still like adding my most commonly used Pitstop tools across the main toolbar at the top of the screen. It does this fine but a lot of times when I launch Acrobat the Pitstop tools at the top are missing though the Acrobat tools are not. To get them back I have to go back in like I am going to add a new one and just and and delete a separator bar and save and the Pitstop tools come back.

There is also the issue of when first launching Acrobat the Pitstop selection tool does not work, i.e. you can't select anything. The fix for that is to open and close the 'About Pitstop Pro' window (OPTION+COMMAND+J) and then ENTER to close it. Then it works fine. Enfocus is aware of the issue and will have a fix at some point.

[RMPrepress]

Thanks Joe.

Did you first start using DC in El Capitan?
If so does it run better in Sierra or any noticeable differences?
That is also on the list is moving the Macs to Sierra...maybe I should do that first.
All of our Macs are running very very well on 10.11.6.

[Joe]

Yes I started on El Capitan and it ran fine on it and it is running fine on Sierra also. We got new Macs when we went to Sierra though so the CPU was upgraded from an i5 to an i7 and the Ram doubled from 8 GB to 16 GB so naturally DC is much faster on the new hardware but we still have the old Macs that were upgraded to Sierra that are now running DC and it runs fine on it.

I know there are some that have complained about network issues with Sierra. One thing I found is as long as you are using the hosts file on the Mac I don't have any networking issues.

[RMPrepress]

We have updated all our MacPro's with SSD's (a few are running with PCI Express SSD's) and upgraded Memory to 32GB.
Four of the MacPro's are the last towers that were made, I think 2012 the 3.33 6core models.
Two others are older 2008 and 2009 Towers but they still fly with OWC SSD's and upgraded memory.
However I think I may not see the full benefits of Sierra and DC on those two older Mac Pros.

[Joe]

You can't put Sierra on the 2008 and 2009 model. It is only compatible back to 2010 models of the Mac Pro.

[RMPrepress]

Yeah, I have been looking into this off and on and it seems you can actually if you upgrade the firmware to 5;1.
Here is one thread and I have read many other success stories.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7690077?start=0&tstart=0

[Joe]

You will need to create a patched installer and for updates you need to use a special update checker. Both freeware tools can be found.

Yeah there are usually hacks people come up with to get around that. I've found though that Apples specs are usually there for a reason and am not a fan of those hacks. Personally I would just have OS X 10.11 on them.

[RMPrepress]

I agree with you Joe....but a part of me wants to try it on the 2009...LOL!!

[RMPrepress]

Funny thing is why does Apple allow my Mac to keep telling me to upgrade to Sierra if it is on the not compatible list...ughhh!!

[Joe]

Funny thing is why does Apple allow my Mac to keep telling me to upgrade to Sierra if it is on the not compatible list...ughhh!!

To remind you to buy new hardware!

[Slappy]

One thing I hate, and it may be our iMac builds, is when I Overprint Preview & turn a color On/Off, the whole page "blinks" when toggling. Usually only on the first On/Off on any given page, but some times it happens 100% of the time - even working locally instead of on the Server.

[Slappy]

Oh yeah, and you can't see Guides when drawing them!! They don't appear until you release the mouse click - SO irritating. I know you can double-click on the Ruler where you want them to be, but if you're lining a guide up to crops or an object that's pretty damned useless.

I saw a thread on the Adobe forum that goes back at least a year where they acknowledge it and say it's been submitted as a bug, still broke though. 

[RMPrepress]

Sounds like I might want to wait...for what I have no idea?
Looks like the way DC behaves is here to stay.  

[Tracy]

I don't like the new guides either, Pitstop has guides, I think it's in Design layout.
I'm not comfortable with them yet, so I don't use them. (Hard to get out of my comfort zone sometimes) :laugh: