The new Adobe Acrobat 5.0 from Adobe Systems offers additional XML-based functionality supporting embedded metadata, collaborative authoring, and forms processing: "Acrobat 5.0 offers a number of key benefits that enable business, graphic arts and IT professionals to excel in this new Network Publishing environment where they must work efficiently at Web speed. Tight Web integration based on WebDistributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) and Open DataBase Connectivity (ODBC) allows teams to simultaneously share comments on Adobe PDF files from within a browser. Support for the Extensible Markup Language (XML) makes it simple for users to integrate data, such as metadata and forms data in Adobe PDF files, with back-end systems. And stronger integration with enterprise deployment tools enables IT professionals to auto-install and maintain Acrobat 5.0 over a network to thousands of multi-user or lockdown desktop systems."

From the web site description:

Adobe Acrobat 5.0 provides support for XML form data: Data from Adobe PDF forms can be submitted in the Web-standard XML (Extensible Markup Language) format, making it easy to integrate Adobe PDF forms with back-end systems.

Sharing comments online can be implemented easily because the process works with a variety of standard protocols, such as WebDistributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV). If your workgroup doesn't already have a shared data repository, you can easily set one up using a shared network folder, ODBC, or Microsoft Office Server extensions.

Create custom search criteria: Create and embed metadata in an Adobe PDF file, thus expanding the ways the file can be searched. eBook publishers can add a metadata field, for example, that enables digital books to be searched by ISBN numbers. Metadata is written in XML, which means the metadata in Adobe PDF files can be indexed by Internet search engines.

Save as RTF: You can save an Adobe PDF provided by colleagues or obtained from Web research as a Rich Text Format (RTF) file, then easily incorporate text from the RTF file into reports and presentations. Acrobat 5.0 [also] lets you enable colleagues to extract images from Adobe PDF documents and save them as TIFF, JPEG, or PNG files. The images can then be incorporated into word processing, presenta-tion, page layout, HTML, and other files. Each exporting format provides additional options for fine-tuning the conversion. When exporting to JPEG, for example, you can determine the compression quality (Mini-mum, Low, Medium, High, Maximum), resolution (from 72 to 600 dpi), and other settings.

Also announced by Cardiff: "Cardiff Software announced an expanded alliance to deliver complete automated electronic form solutions based upon the newly announced Adobe Acrobat 5.0 software.The alliance results in an end-to-end solution for digital online forms based upon the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF)standard. As a part of the alliance,Cardiff will offer LiquidForms,an XML-based eForm management system that adds form design and Web-based routing,approval and submission capabilities to users of Adobe PDF forms.LiquidForms leverages Acrobat 5.0 and Adobe PDF to provide an industry standard client interface for interactive form filling and signing.LiquidForms also leverages Cardiff 's role as a technical editor for the World Wide Web Consortium's XForms Working Group."