diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index bd33ad23be..e5c0b799a9 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@
 <h1 align="center">PdfCraft</h1>
 
 <p align="center">
-  <b>The PDF workbench; an open-source, clean-room reimplementation of Adobe Acrobat, rebuilt in pure Rust.</b><br>
+  <b>The PDF workbench; an open-source, modern PDF reader and editor, built in pure Rust.</b><br>
   Read, organize, combine, split and secure PDFs in a fast, native app, written in Rust from the ground up.<br>
   macOS · Windows · Linux · FreeBSD · the web
 </p>
@@ -417,16 +417,16 @@ Logs, environment variables and other development notes are in [docs/development
 
 ## What's next
 
-PdfCraft is young and moving fast. The aim is a workbench where you can view, organize, annotate, fill, sign and edit PDFs, at parity with Acrobat Pro.
+PdfCraft is young and moving fast. The aim is a workbench where you can view, organize, annotate, fill, sign and edit PDFs, for professional and everyday workflows.
 
-**Where it stands (October 2026), honestly:** PdfCraft is **alpha**. Most of Acrobat Pro's offline features exist in some form (57% of all tracked features, 94% of the must-haves). For everyday work (viewing, commenting, filling and signing forms, organizing pages) it is about 55% of the way to replacing Acrobat; against all of Acrobat Pro, about 49%; for someone who only needs the essentials, about 66%. Every everyday workflow can be completed, but converting and sharing is weak: no Office-to-PDF, and Word export that loses layout.
+**Where it stands (October 2026), honestly:** PdfCraft is **alpha**. Most essential offline PDF features exist in some form (57% of all tracked features, 94% of core essentials). For everyday work (viewing, commenting, filling and signing forms, organizing pages) readiness is about 55%; across all professional workflows, about 49%; for someone who only needs the essentials, about 66%. Every everyday workflow can be completed, but converting and sharing is weak: no Office-to-PDF, and Word export that loses layout.
 
 - **Good today:** viewing and search; organizing, combining and splitting; most kinds of comment; filling and authoring forms (with sandboxed JavaScript); passwords, redaction and sanitizing; basic digital signatures; printing; the Accessibility Checker; agent control through the CLI and MCP.
 - **Still borrowed:** pages are drawn by the `hayro` crate while our own renderer is built.
 - **Thin or missing:** reliable editing of existing text (especially CJK and right-to-left), OCR beyond Latin script, Office import/export, signature tokens and online long-term validation, Preflight and PDF/X/UA, printing from the web build, physical printer fidelity, and full XFA forms.
-- **Hardening:** fuzzing still turns up crashes and hangs on hostile files; each one is fixed with a regression test. Quality has not yet been compared with Acrobat side by side.
+- **Hardening:** fuzzing still turns up crashes and hangs on hostile files; each one is fixed with a regression test. Quality has not yet been benchmarked side by side.
 
-**Next, in order:** Office-to-PDF and a Word export that keeps layout, the reported bugs and the Chinese interface font, a fidelity harness against Acrobat and the renderer, editing existing content, then the Pro workflows (OCR, Office, Preflight, signatures, accessibility tagging) and 1.0 polish.
+**Next, in order:** Office-to-PDF and a Word export that keeps layout, the reported bugs and the Chinese interface font, a fidelity harness and the renderer, editing existing content, then professional workflows (OCR, Office, Preflight, signatures, accessibility tagging) and 1.0 polish.
 
 The summary is in **[ROADMAP.md](ROADMAP.md)**; the full assessment by dimension and area is in [docs/target-app-parity.md](docs/target-app-parity.md), the ranked gaps in [docs/gaps.md](docs/gaps.md), and the milestones in [docs/roadmap.md](docs/roadmap.md).
 
@@ -581,8 +581,6 @@ ArtCraft Team and are not covered by this license. They may be used only unmodif
 part of this repository and PdfCraft, under [`docs/brand/LICENSE-brand.txt`](docs/brand/LICENSE-brand.txt).
 Forks and modified versions must remove them.
 
-<sub>Adobe, Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, Lightroom, Acrobat, After Effects and InDesign are trademarks or registered trademarks of Adobe Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. PdfCraft is an independent, open-source project and is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by Adobe Inc.; these names are used only to describe the workflows it is compatible with.</sub>
-
 <p align="center">
   <a href="https://getartcraft.com/"><img alt="ArtCraft" src="docs/brand/artcraft-mark.svg" width="28"></a><br>
   <sub>Made by the <a href="https://getartcraft.com/">ArtCraft</a> team and community.</sub>