Adobe Software Could Start New Era in Computer Communication : Technology: Sharing of polished documents removes a major hurdle blocking the paperless office.

Aiming to change the way people share information, Adobe Systems Inc. today will introduce software that lets personal computers exchange polished documents even if the systems are incompatible.

With Acrobat, as the new software is known, someone with an Apple Macintosh computer could view a presentation prepared on an IBM-compatible machine running Microsoft Windows, with all graphics and fonts appearing in their original form.

If Acrobat catches on, it could open the door to the electronic distribution of newsletters, magazines and other periodicals now printed on paper. Corporations might also embrace it in yet another stab at the paperless office.

Analysts called the product a breakthrough, saying it could potentially double Mountain View-based Adobe’s annual revenue. The company’s shares leaped $3 to a record $72.50 on Monday in anticipation of the Acrobat announcement.

But Adobe, whose Postscript software has become a standard for computer printers, faces a challenge in gaining the near-universal acceptance that will be essential to the product’s success.

“It’s an extremely interesting technology, and if they can push it over the edge it will be a very large and lucrative market,” said Chris Hassett, a onetime Adobe employee who is now chief executive of PED Software in San Jose. “But it’s a brand-new market, and a lot of companies have talked about the ‘paperless office’ and not gotten anywhere.”

Charles Geshke, Adobe’s president, shies away from blue-sky talk about the paperless office. But he noted that personal computers, for all their usefulness, have some serious shortcomings, even when connected on networks.

“They don’t help you distribute information,” he said. “The computer industry is isolated fiefdoms” that don’t talk to one another. Thus, most companies routinely create memos, corporate directories and other such documents and then make thousands of paper copies for distribution to employees.

With Acrobat, a document can simply be posted on the computer network and anyone could retrieve the document in its original form for viewing or printing. While it might be possible to view the document on different computers today, it would typically appear only in the raw text format known as ASCII, without any formatting or graphics. And though Acrobat documents cannot be edited, they can be searched and indexed.

In addition to internal corporate uses, Acrobat could also be a powerful tool for publishers seeking new ways to disseminate news and other information. A newspaper, for example, could be distributed on a CD-ROM disk or over telephone lines in one version for use on any computer.

The pages would appear exactly as they do in print, and the reader could flip through them as if reading a paper document.

Keith Vogt, director of the California Technology Project, a state-funded education program, has been testing the software as a means of distributing curriculum material electronically to teachers around the state.

“We think it’s a super product, a real answer to sending graphics along with the text,” he said. “We will be a very big user.”

At Capp Studios, a Chicago advertising agency affiliated with Leo Burnett, Acrobat is used to send electronic copies of ads to clients for review. Technically, it works extremely well, said Macintosh computer manager Christopher Miller. The only barrier has been one of “inculturation,” he said, getting people used to working electronically.

On the competitive battlefront, though, Adobe will face several hurdles. Several small companies, including No Hands Software of Belmont, Calif., have competing products, although none is as far along as Acrobat. Apple and Microsoft are also at work on similar solutions.

And by its very nature, a product such as Acrobat must be a standard to be a success, since only people with Acrobat software will be able to view the special Acrobat files. Three versions of Acrobat--one for networks, one for creating Acrobat documents and one for viewing those documents--will be released today, with suggested retail prices starting at $195. Street prices will be lower.