Grayscale PDF = A Smaller PDF

PDF files come in all sorts of color profile flavors:

• CMYK (cyan-yellow-magenta-black) colors used in the traditional 4-color offset press process
• RGB (red-green-blue) colors used in video screen rendering
• Grayscale (varying shades of black-gray-white)
• Monochrome (line art)

It is logical that these file types would “weigh” differently.  Images with millions of colors will contain considerably more information than an image comprised of 256 colors.  Glorious, colorful PDF files look wonderful on your screen, and will certainly reproduce vividly on a color inkjet or laser printer.  Is this color important though?  If you’ve designed a flyer or newsletter and are distributing the document in PDF format, the color is likely a critical aspect of the document.  If, however, your PDF file is part of a workflow in a law office, the color may be incidental, and may actually add nothing to the document’s purpose other than bloating the document’s file size.

Print shops manipulate PDF files all the time to adjust your work to their equipment & processes.  If you send out a PDF file for offset printing, and you accidentally used an RGB image in your work, it can be converted to the appropriate CMYK color system by using Acrobat’s Preflight feature.

Preflighting is the process of confirming that digital files are correctly formatted for the desired output method.  Acrobat’s preflighting tools have matured vastly in recent Acrobat releases, and not only perform checks, but repairs & conversions.  As an example, I have a full color PDF file (CMYK).  The file is 3.23 Megabytes.  Since my colleague does not have a color printer, I could opt to send him a version of this document that I have converted to grayscale in order to save on precious file space.

To convert a PDF file to grayscale, click on Advanced>Preflight… Click the triangle to the left of PDF fixups.  Here you will find a wide variety of conversions and fixups.  Find the Convert to grayscale & double click.  Acrobat takes you right to a Save As dialog box, which will allow you to rename the file, preserving the original.  In this example, the newly-created grayscale document is only 1.73 Megabytes.

Don’t think that losing all those colors is always a terrible thing – try watching Casablanca colorized some time.  Yuck.

Learn what PDF technology is all about… and how to use Acrobat 9 Professional to create, edit & enhance your PDF files.  I offer training classes in Adobe Acrobat 9, either in your facility or online.  To learn more about my Acrobat classes, send me an email or sign up for my online classes.

My Top 10 Acrobat Keyboard Shortcuts…

Here are my top 10 favorite keyboard shortcuts that I have grown to rely on in Acrobat 9 Professional.  You may know all of them, some of them, or maybe none at all.  Everyone uses their applications differently.  I used to be a mega-mouse-clicker.  Over the years, I have grown to use, appreciate & ultimately rely on keyboard shortcuts to help streamline my workflow.  So, here they are… my Top Ten Acrobat 9 Professional Keyboard Shortcuts:

Drum roll, please…

10.      Ctrl-6 Insert Sticky Note

9.        Shift-Ctrl-D Delete Pages

8.        Ctrl-R Show/Hide Rulers (yes, Acrobat DOES have rulers!)

7.        Ctrl-U Show/Hide Grid (yep – Acrobat has a design grid too!)

6.        Alt-Left Arrow Previous View

5.        Ctrl-0 (zero) Fit Page

4.        Shift-Ctrl-1 Open Organizer

3.        Shift-Ctrl-F Search

2.        Ctrl-D Document Properties

…and the number 1 keyboard shortcut is…

1.        Ctrl-K Preferences

There are many, many more waiting to be discovered and learned. Learn what PDF technology is all about… and how to use Acrobat 9 Professional to create, edit & enhance your PDF files.  I offer training classes in Adobe Acrobat 9, either in your facility or online.  To learn more about my Acrobat classes, send me an email or sign up for my online classes.

Here are my top 10 favorite keyboard shortcuts that I have grown to rely on in Acrobat 9 Professional.  You may know all of them, some of them, or maybe none at all.  Everyone uses their applications differently.  I used to be a mega-mouse-clicker.  Over the years, I have grown to use, appreciate & ultimately rely on keyboard shortcuts to help streamline my workflow.  So, here they are… my Top Ten Acrobat 9 Professional Keyboard Shortcuts:

Drum roll, please…

10.      Ctrl-6 Insert Sticky Note

9.        Shift-Ctrl-D Delete Pages

8.        Ctrl-R Show/Hide Rulers (yes, Acrobat DOES have rulers!)

7.        Ctrl-U Show/Hide Grid (yep – Acrobat has a design grid too!)

6.        Alt-Left Arrow Previous View

5.        Ctrl-0 (zero) Fit Page

4.        Shift-Ctrl-1 Open Organizer

3.        Shift-Ctrl-F Search

2.        Ctrl-D Document Properties

…and the number 1 keyboard shortcut is…

1.        Ctrl-K Preferences

There are many, many more waiting to be discovered and learned.

Making Search Easy

A few months ago, I wrote an article titled Search Is King which touted the power of Acrobat’s Search command.  I use Search constantly, and I almost never use Find.  Why drive a moped if there is a Honda Goldwing in the same garage?  Adobe gives us, in both Acrobat and Reader, a Find command on our default Toolbar layout.  It’s easy to use, but very limited in its capabilities – like that moped.  The Search command is NOT part of the default tools layout, therefore severely reducing the chance that a casual PDF ‘consumer’ will use the more powerful Search command. Here’s a cool trick that will greatly increase the likelihood that a user will call on the Search command… we’ll put it right in their hands – they won’t be able to resist using it!

In the most binary way, one does any of 2 things with a PDF page – open or close it.  We can use these two page states as a trigger for an action, such as Edit>Search.  Open any PDF file, and then open the Pages Panel.  Right-click on your 1^st page icon, and select Page Properties.   Next click on the Actions Tab.  Those 2 page states I mentioned are listed as Triggers.  Select Page Open as the trigger, and choose Execute a menu item as the Action.  Click the Add… button to bring up a list of possible commands to execute.  Choose Edit>Search from this list and click OK.  The theory in place now is that when your 1^st page is open, it will automatically trigger the Edit>Search command, showing the normally hidden Search panel… all without the user even knowing how.  Page Actions are very powerful, and multiple actions can be assigned to a single trigger.  Experiment and have fun with this.

Learn what PDF technology is all about… and how to use Acrobat 9 Professional to create, edit & enhance your PDF files.  I offer training classes in Adobe Acrobat 9, either in your facility or online.  To learn more about my Acrobat classes, send me an email or sign up for my online classes.

An Acrobat Hidden Gem – The Properties Bar

Many folks are perfectly content with leaving things the way they are.  “Why change it?  It works, doesn’t it?”  “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”  Well, if everyone subscribed to this way of thinking – and they used Acrobat in a review cycle with co-workers, it wouldn’t take long for the pages of a PDF file to become covered with dozens of yellow Sticky Notes.  That’s how they all look – if you don’t change their properties.  It would be infinitely easier to decipher who’s comments you were reading if each contributor had his/her own unique color for their comments.  In Adobe products, I have long subscribed to the notion that if you’re looking for a command, right-click – it’s likely there.  Many folks, therefore, have discovered on their own that if you right-click on a Stick Note’s icon, you can select Properties and change the way your note icon looks by making changes on the Appearance Tab.  If you have created a Call Out, you could right-click on its edge and adjust the line style, line weight & fill color.

The secret to unlocking these attributes more quickly – and some that you can’t even get to by right clicking is to open up a toolbar called the Properties Bar.  The Properties Bar concept is not new.  Early releases of QuarkXpress had a properties bar, and it didn’t take Aldus, and ultimately Adobe long to realize its value and include it in Pagemaker.

To launch the Properties Bar, Right-Click the tool bar area at the top of your Acrobat interface & click on Properties Bar to make it visible.  Now that it’s visible, it’s time to scratch your head.  It appears to do NOTHING!  It looks like a painting without any paint on it – a blank sheet of paper.  Actually, it’s doing just what it’s designed to do – show you the properties of whatever object you have currently selected.  You likely had nothing selected, so it was just minding its own business and waiting for you to click on something.  Click on a Sticky Note to select it.  The Properties Bar instantly reports the Note’s properties, and you can change its attributes by simply dialing in a different value in the Properties Bar.  Quick & Easy!  Any commenting object you click on is easily customized.  Clicking on a Call Out allows you to quickly customize its stroke, fill & opacity.  Double-clicking  inside the text area puts you in text edit mode, and you can then select a custom typeface and text alignment.

If you like the Properties Bar as much as I do, you may want to have it onscreen all the times, and a way to keep it always visible (yet out of the way) is to dock it to the bottom of your Acrobat window.

Learn what PDF technology is all about… and how to use Acrobat 9 Professional to create, edit & enhance your PDF files.  I offer training classes in Adobe Acrobat 9, either in your facility or online.  To learn more about my Acrobat classes, send me an email or sign up for my online classes.

Clear the Decks!

Loaded to the brim with features, Acrobat 9 has something for everyone.  Need to deliver a video?  Acrobat’s got it covered.  Want to send a friend a poster, images and a recording from that great performance you attended?  Acrobat can do that – the PDF Portfolio is the answer to what was once impossibility.  Need to send out a form so your customers can fill out your survey, while your responses are tracked automatically for you?  Full screen presentations that will play on a Mac or Linux machine?  Acrobat.

With all of these amazing “super features”, it’s easy to forget about the simple written word.  Yes, just like that cell phone in your pocket that shoots video, texts, updates Facebook, checks for email and gives you turn-by-turn directions to your next meal, it’s a phone too (who knew?)!

Acrobat’s interface can become a bit cluttered, and therefore distracting if you want to simply read the text of a PDF document.  Here is a screenshot of what Acrobat looks like on my computer on any given day:

There are toolbars & navigation panels everywhere, and although they are useful, they can simply get in the way of reading the words on the page.  The solution to this to use Acrobat’s Reading Mode.  Either click View>Reading Mode or press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl>H (I think HIDE).  Your navigation panels vanish, your toolbars go away, and you are left with essentially an electronic piece of paper on screen.  Ctrl>H also toggles back to your original view, so your bookmarks & other features you may need are just a keyboard shortcut away.

Learn what PDF technology is all about… and how to use Acrobat 9 Professional to create, edit & enhance your PDF files.  I offer training classes in Adobe Acrobat 9, either in your facility or online.  To learn more about my Acrobat classes, send me an email or sign up for my online classes.

Look It Up!

When I went off to college, my family bought me a dictionary.  It was new, crisp & up to date.  Oh yes… it weighed a ton!  I still have it, but it is certainly not new, crisp, or even up to date now.  It is, however still heavy.  That’s one reason it remains untouched for years on my bookshelf.  The other reason it hasn’t been used in a while is because many dictionaries have been made available online for anyone to use for free.

Adobe has wisely anticipated a workflow scenario: While reading a PDF file, you come across a word you don’t know.  You’ll want to either memorize or copy the word, open your web browser, navigate to an online dictionary site, type or paste in the word… and then finally read its meaning.  Whew… too much work.  To jump from the 1^st step to the last step immediately, try this cool trick.  Highlight the word for which you need its meaning.  Right-click on the highlighted area & select Look up “your word”. Acrobat opens up your default web browser and takes you directly to dictionary.com – AND queries your word for you, so you are presented with the definition immediately.

Not only is this available in Acrobat Pro, but it even exists in Reader.  To illustrate this visually (along with just how universal PDF files are), here is a screenshot of the same document open in Reader… in Linux!  Sweet.

Learn what PDF technology is all about… and how to use Acrobat 9 Professional to create, edit & enhance your PDF files.  I offer training classes in Adobe Acrobat 9, either in your facility or online.  To learn more about my Acrobat classes, send me an email or sign up for my online classes.

Smooooooth!

I receive lots of feedback on my Acrobat tips & tricks.  Whether in a physical classroom, online virtual learning environment, through my blog or email tips, there can be that one gem of a concept that can impact the way one works with Acrobat dramatically.  “I am SO using that when I get back to my office.” or “I wish I knew that last month – it would have saved me dozens of hours of painstaking work.” I love hearing these things from students.  Acrobat is loaded with great features that are super useful, but maybe not so obvious.  This week’s tip will certainly NOT be one of those gems.  It simply falls into the category of “Oh… cool!” instead of “Oh my God!!!”

When zooming in and out of a PDF file in Acrobat or Reader, the visual transitions from view to view are jerky.  Perfectly normal – perfectly fine, since that’s the way PDF files & Acrobat work, right?  Yes, but there is a way to have Acrobat or Reader make the visual transition smoothly.  Click on Edit>Preferences and go to the Page Display option on the left.  In the Page Content and Information section on the right, turn on the Use smooth zooming feature and click OK.  When changing magnification now, you see an animated, smooth glide from view to view.

Useful – nah.  Cool – Yes! (Macintosh users – this is another of those gems that exists in the Windows version only.  Not to despair – your operating system is so slick, you probably aren’t as starved for these visual tricks as the Windows folks anyway!)

Learn what PDF technology is all about… and how to use Acrobat 9 Professional to create, edit & enhance your PDF files.  I offer training classes in Adobe Acrobat 9, either in your facility or online.  To learn more about my Acrobat classes, send me an email or sign up for my online classes.

Search is King!

You have a PDF file, and you need to locate a word or phrase in it.  How convenient – there’s a Find tool right there on your toolbar.  You type in your search term and press enter.  Instantly, you are brought to that phrase in your PDF.  But it wasn’t the passage you needed.  You press the Find Next button.  Another instance of your word is highlighted, but it still isn’t the right one.  You start clicking faster & more fiercely because there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight.  You have no idea how many times your word appears in this document, so you may be clicking for a few minutes, or considerably longer.  There’s got to be a better way, and there is!

Retire the Find toolbar.  Right-click on your toolbar area & deselect it from the list to hide the Find Toolbar for good.  Now, right-click on your File toolbar and turn on the hidden Search Button.  It’s the one with the binoculars on it.  When you click on it (or simply click Edit>Search), the Search panel opens and offers to help you find your elusive text.  You can search the current document, or a collection of PDF files in a specific directory.  You can refine your search criteria to search whole words only, be case-sensitive, include bookmarks or even the file’s comments.  A link at the bottom of the Search Panel allows you to show more advanced search options such as stemming (a search for opening finds instances of open, opened, opens, and openly) and Boolean operators .

A list of search term ‘hits’ are presented in concert with their surrounding words, allowing the context to be previewed and evaluated at a glance as its relevance.

In my classes, I refer to the difference between Acrobat’s Find and Search commands like driving a VW Beetle and Mercedes sports car.  (I really DO drive a Beetle, actually, but wish I had that Mercedes!)  Take the Search button for a test drive.  You’ll never look back.

Learn what PDF technology is all about… and how to use Acrobat 9 Professional to create, edit & enhance your PDF files.  I offer training classes in Adobe Acrobat 9, either in your facility or online.  To learn more about my Acrobat classes, send me an email or sign up for my online classes.

Redacting With a Safety Net

Redaction is to obscure or remove something from a document prior to publication or release.  Traditionally, text is redacted from documents, but in the PDF world, we can redact sections of pages to remove text or images.  In the dark ages (1970s), one redacted by covering portions of a document with black ink.  Nothing was actually removed from a document, but rather covered up. Close physical inspection of the documents could often uncover traces of the original redacted portions.

In Acrobat 9, the redaction tools don’t cover anything.  They remove the unwanted text, image or portion of a page.  Once redacted, those objects are gone.  And I mean REALLY gone for good.  Acrobat 9 reminds us of this when applying the redaction.  You are informed that once redacted and then saved, your redacted content is gone forever.  This sounds like a perfect time to perform a Save As, allowing you to give your newly (and permanently altered) PDF file a new name, and also therefore preserving your original document’s integrity.  This concept is also presented to you by Acrobat’s dialog box.

There’s a nice little trick tucked away in Acrobat 9’s preferences to allow Acrobat to automatically alter the name of any document once redaction is applied.  Click Edit>Preferences (Acrobat>Preferences on Mac) and select the Document category on the left.  On the right, notice the bottom set of options deal with Examine Document choices. The very last option, when enabled, will automatically adjust the name of any file on which redaction is applied.  A custom prefix or suffix can be defined here. Once enabled, your redacted PDF files will automatically be renamed to both preserve a version of the original document and to easily be able to differentiate the original from the redacted one.  It’s still necessary to save that file once redacted, but you will notice that the altered name is there when ready to save.

Learn what PDF technology is all about… and how to use Acrobat 9 Professional to create, edit & enhance your PDF files.  I offer training classes in Adobe Acrobat 9, either in your facility or online.  To learn more about my Acrobat classes, send me an email or sign up for my online classes.

You Might Need an Acrobat Class If…

If your PDF files can’t talk or sing… You might need an Acrobat class.

If your PDF files don’t hyperlink to your web site…  You might need an Acrobat class.

If your PDF files don’t open to the desired & intended view… You might need an Acrobat class.

If your PDF files are too big… You might need an Acrobat class.

If your PDF files are not §508 compliant… You might need an Acrobat class.

If your PDF files don’t contain bookmarks… You might need an Acrobat class.

If your PDF files contain a picture that needs editing… You might need an Acrobat class.

If your PDF files look like forms but no one can fill them out… You might need an Acrobat class.

If you think the only way to make a PDF file is through the Print dialog box… You might need an Acrobat class.

If you think PDF stands for Pretty Darn Fancy… You might need an Acrobat class.

If you think all portfolios can be tucked under your arm… You might need an Acrobat class.

If you think the only thing you own with FLASH is your camera… You might need an Acrobat class.

If you think the Ink Manager is the guy down the hall with dirty hands… You might need an Acrobat class.

If you think Preflighting is only performed at the airport… You might need an Acrobat class.

If you think your colleagues can’t save their filled-in forms because they only have Reader… You might need an Acrobat class.

If you don’t know how to keep others from editing & stealing your PDF file’s content… You might need an Acrobat class.

If you think the only buttons in Acrobat are the ones on your toolbars… You might need an Acrobat class.

If you think multiple actions require you to wear your Nikes… You might need an Acrobat class.

If you think all thumbnails need trimming from time to time… You might need an Acrobat class.

If you think your employees shouldn’t use Distiller if they’re under 21…  You DEFINITELY need an Acrobat class.

Learn what PDF technology is all about… and how to use Acrobat 9 Professional to create, edit & enhance your PDF files.  I offer training classes in Adobe Acrobat 9, either in your facility or online.  To learn more about my Acrobat classes, send me an email or sign up for my online classes.