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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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.  [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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