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.

Take the Bridge Next Time

No, not that bridge – Adobe’s Bridge.  You know, the “powerful, easy-to-use media manager for visual people, letting you easily organize, browse, locate, and view creative assets.”  I have previously written about how handy Acrobat’s Organizer can be, but it is a child application to Acrobat, and can therefore not be opened on its own.  Organizer MUST be opened from within Acrobat, and it closes down when Acrobat is exited.

CS4 users (earlier versions too) probably have spent time exploring and using some of Bridge’s many useful features and capabilities.  There doesn’t seem to be too much buzz about how Bridge can work with PDF files, so I’m gonna stir things up here with some PDF-specific functionality of Bridge.

Bridge will naturally offer scalable thumbnails of your PDF files.  If you right-click a PDF file on PC (or ctrl-click on Mac), select Open with… , you will find options allowing you to open the PDF file in a variety of programs… NOT merely Acrobat.  Your program list will be dependent on your installed applications, but Creative Suite users will find Photoshop and Illustrator listed as options.  The individual programs will then walk you through opening options (resolution, pages included, etc.).

Bridge allows you to preview a PDF file without ever opening Acrobat.  If you change Bridge’s viewing option to Filmstrip (Window>Workspace), you can then preview a selected PDF, complete with page navigation controls.

Want to compare several PDF files visually without opening any of them?  While still in Filmstrip view, select multiple PDF files.  This won’t be as powerful as Acrobat’s Compare Documents feature, but sometime a quick glance is all that’s required.

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.

PDF Watermarks

Yes – watermarks in Acrobat.  And they’re terrific and the options are many. To access Acrobat’s watermark features, click Document>Watermark.  The 3 options presented are Add, Update and Remove – pretty straight-forward to my thinking.  In my example, I selected Add to begin the process.  Rather than use a pre-made graphic as a watermark (perhaps a company logo), I chose to type the word DRAFT in the Source text box.  Immediately, a live preview becomes visible on the right.  I changed the watermarks color to red, font to Arial Black Bold, rotated the watermark 45 degrees and dialed it’s opacity down to 25%.  I also set its scale to 75% of each target page, allowing it to be appropriately sized on any size page.

This isn’t too complicated, but if I had to repeat the process over & over again, it would become tedious.  At the top of the Add Watermark dialog box is the ability to Save Settings, which would allow you to name & save your settings for later use.  Handy, but there’s no need to open individual documents – one at a time, in order to watermark them. Below the preview window in the Add Watermark dialog box is an Apply to Multiple button, allowing one to batch apply watermark to many files at once.  You are presented with a typical Adobe Add Files button.  Select the files you wish to process and click OK.  The Output Options allows you to specify a Target Folder, and even offers to add a prefix or suffix to your newly processed PDF files.  I entered _draft as a suffix.  Click OK, and the job is automated for you.

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.

What a load of CROP!

We’ve all used a crop tool in a variety of software applications for many years.  The crop tool iconage has always looked the same, regardless of the program.  We have grown to expect that the cropping process is a rectangular trimming of an area.  Fair enough…  Unless you’re working with Acrobat’s Crop Tool!

Acrobat’s Crop Tool resides on the Advanced Editing Toolbar.  Yes, you can crop a PDF page by defining a rectangle with this tool (click-drag).  Tapping the ENTER key or double-clicking in your defined rectangle opens up the crop dialog box.  This is where you can dial in exact dimensions for your cropping task for mathematical accuracy.

What few people stop to realize is that Acrobat’s crop tool does a bit more than merely crop pages.  In fact, it will allow you to define a CropBox,  ArtBox, TrimBox and BleedBox.  Here are descriptions of each possibility:

• CropBox – Defines the boundary for the contents of a page when it’s displayed or printed. If not otherwise specified (for example, in the JDF settings), the crop boundary determines how page contents are positioned on the output medium.
• ArtBox – Defines the meaningful content of the page, including white space.
• TrimBox – Defines the finished dimensions of the page after trimming.
• BleedBox – Defines the clipping path when the page is printed professionally to allow for paper trimming and folding. Printing marks may fall outside the bleed area.

The bottom of the Crop Dialog Box holds another powerful surprise – the ability to Change Page Size.  Explore & see what it can do.

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.

Can you read me a story?

People are always surprised when they find out some of the cool things that PDF files and Acrobat itself can do.  Many students leave my classes delighted with their new-found skills which allow them to enhance their PDF files interactively.  Folks love bookmarks & links.  They are thrilled with buttons & actions.  But the one feature of Acrobat itself that no one is quite prepared for is that PDF files that contain live text (not images of scanned text) can be read to them out loud.  Unlike web sites, no additional screen reading piece of software is required to hear your PDF file.  Acrobat has its own voice – well, actually it’s your operating system’s voice.  To hear Acrobat read your document out loud to you, first ‘turn on the main power switch’.  Click View>Read Out Loud>Activate Read Out Loud.  Once activated, you will tell Acrobat exactly what portion of your document is to be read.  The presented choices are Read This Page Only and Read to End of Document.  If, however, you take your select tool and drag to highlight a block of text, Acrobat will read the selected text to you.  The robot-like voice is your operating system’s default voice.  In the case of Windows, you’ll think you’re standing in a 1980’s video arcade.  You can go to Acrobat’s Preferences and click on Reading to edit the voice settings.  There are plenty of 3^rd party vendors that sell amazingly realistic computer synthesized voices such as NeoSpeech.

Two final words… and you may thank me for this if you choose to try this cool Acrobat feature:

1. No matter how hard you press the Escape key to stop the reading, it won’t work.  You must use the View>Read Out Loud>Stop command.
2. Remember that ‘main power’ switch I talked about?  Turn it off when you’re done!  If you don’t you’ll select some text a few hours later… and Acrobat will send you through the ceiling when it begins to read out loud to you, and you’re not expecting it!  View>Read Out Loud>Deactivate Read Out Loud.

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.