Almost everybody who uses a computer for business has at least heard of Adobe Acrobat. If you don't recognize the name, you'll recognize the commonly used initials, PDF, as in "I'll send it to you in PDF format." PDF has become the de facto standard format used by white-collar workers to send documents back and forth -- perhaps even overtaking the once ubiquitous .DOC (Microsoft Word Document) format.

Just about every computer can read a PDF because Adobe has been giving away Adobe Reader (formerly Acrobat Reader) software for years. The idea was that if everybody could read an Acrobat document, Adobe would sell a lot of copies of Adobe Acrobat software, a similar but more powerful software application with which users could create those files.

Today's Adobe Acrobat, though, is not your father's Acrobat. With Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended, Adobe has taken the PDF format to a whole new level, allowing users to create multifunction documents that are rich in media, provide some level of interactivity when used with Adobe Reader, and provide unique collaboration capabilities -- putting Adobe into a position of whittling away the traditional Microsoft Office monopoly.

In the traditional world, it wasn't unusual for somebody to create a document in Microsoft Word, then convert it to PDF format by printing to a make-believe PDF printer -- which really wasn't a printer at all, simply a file on your hard disk drive.

You can still do that, but Acrobat can pull your Word document into PDF format without printing it from Word. It can even pull other types of formats, including graphics (jpg and gif), other Microsoft Office formats (Excel, PowerPoint and Publisher) and PostScript, a favorite of graphics designers. Unlike your standard output from Word, though, with Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended, you can assemble multiple files into a single PDF document in one simple operation. Or you can assemble them into a portfolio of multiple PDF documents. For people who create a lot of paperwork, these options can be time savers.

I'm most intrigued, though, by the forms-creation capabilities of Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended. It looks like they have Microsoft's InfoPath in their sights because the Acrobat functionality makes it a breeze to create a form, distribute it and collect the information after somebody has filled it out using Adobe Reader.

The form-creation capability is provided through a subset program, called Life Cycle Designer ES, which is called up when you start creating your form. Life Cycle Designer starts by using a Wizard to collect your basic information and design in a series of steps. You can start with a blank document, import an existing form from Word or a spreadsheet, or create one from a library of form templates that Life Cycle Designer puts at your fingertips. Then, once the Wizard is complete, you can modify the basic design to meet your needs, including putting in text fields, radio buttons, check boxes and other forms items.

The coolest part is that you can save and distribute the form so it can be printed and filled out by hand or completed on a computer using the latest versions of Acrobat Reader. You can even include a button that automatically submits the completed form back to you by e-mail in a format (XML) that can be easily read and compiled from multiple submitters.

Acrobat 9 Pro Extended lists at $229 upgrade or $699 for a full stand-alone product, or for $950 to $1,800 as part of Adobe's Technical Communications Suite 2.