I recently upgraded from 25.2 to 25.4. All was fine until I started trying to combine my PDF's into a single PDF. I have always used the e-mail transfer in Xactimate to send the Estimate, General (or any other) report, the Photo Report (which allows more room for descriptions and larger pictures), and the ITV report to a folder, and I then would open Adobe Acrobat to combine all of these into a single (and yet smaller) PDF file. Suddenly I see all of the Xactimate produced reports are encrypted and require a password to unlock. You cannot combine encrypted PDF files into another PDF file. This has been mentioned previously, by the way. Well, I got onto the website and checked the 25.4 material, then the HELP on Xactimate, and there is no mention of any encryption. I then got to a real live person on "Live Talk" and was finally told that this was actually added in 25.3, which you load in when upgrading. I was also told that there is no workaround and that the password is a closely guarded secret (!). I talked to a guy in Sales this morning and was told he could sure sell me a dual license for an additional $50.00 a month and reload 25.2. Or I could drop back to 25.2 and loose whatever I had done in 25.4. Wow, what options. I then talked to a head Techie who admitted the word came down from "upper management" to add this "back in". I have used Xactimate since it was DOS and I have never, ever had PDF files encrypted so he sort of stuttered on that one. He then said 25.5 has removed the forced encryption and it can be turned off. Since none of my companies have approved 25.5, that doesn't do much good. I told one of these folks that had they put a disclaimer into the material regarding this, some of us would not have installed the upgrade. DOH!
This can be worked around by printing the the reports using your own PDF printer that is installed when Acrobat is installed. The only problem is, the files are somewhat larger making the total package a lot larger and harder to sent.
And to add insult to injury, Xactware raised the price by $10.00! I told the developer that 25.4 was Xactimate's answer to Windows ME 2, I mean Vista. That hurt.