This is a constant source of confusion for people - here are the
- Adobe: The company behind all of these software products
- Acrobat: The (paid) software that allows you to edit & create PDFs
- Acrobat Reader: The (free) software that allows you to read and fill in PDFs (created by somebody with the paid Acrobat software). Pinnacle installs this by default on all Windows machines that we manage.
- Creative Suite: The (paid) software that has diferent package options that include various combinations of the following software: Acrobat (PDF editing - see above), Photoshop (photo editing), InDesign (desktop publishing), Premiere (video editing), and a few others
If you only need software to edit/create PDFs, Pinnacle offers a competing product called FoxIt Phantom PDF (Standard) that we believe works better, runs faster, is easier to deploy, and is cheaper. FoxIt Phantom PDF (Standard) costs $10/month/computer, while Adobe Acrobat costs anywhere from $13 to $30/month/user, depending on the plan you choose and whether you choose annual or monthly subscription. See Adobe Acrobat Standard vs Pro: compare Acrobat versions.
Note: while Adobe allows you to activate their software on 2 machines under the same user account, this is intended for use by a single person switching between 2 devices (e.g. desktop + laptop), never simultaneously. See Can I install my Adobe app on another computer?
Here's an article from FoxIt comparing themselves with Adobe if you want to check out the details: The Best Alternative to Adobe Acrobat (foxit.com). If you need more more than just PDF editing and choose to subscribe to Adobe's Creative Suite, we recommend that you bundle Acrobat in there instead of using FoxIt Phantom PDF, since those applications are all intended to work together with Adobe's cloud services.
Note: Any Adobe software subscriptions must be purchased directly by the customer - Adobe makes it exceptionally painful for service providers like Pinnacle to sell & manage their products.