Adobe Acrobat (PDF)
What is PDF and what can it do? • • • PDF stands for Portable Document Format. It allows people to view, search and print documents exactly as the user intended, whether they have the software and/or fonts used to create it or not. Adobe Acrobat software allows you to save documents in PDF format. To view a PDF document, only the Acrobat Reader (a free download) is required. Many users already have this reader on their computer as it comes in packages with other software applications as well as with newer Internet browser versions. With Acrobat you can configure forms that can be filled out and printed. Using the full version of the Acrobat program, users can fill out, print and/or save forms. Users with the free Reader version can only fill out and print.
What do people use Adobe Acrobat for? • • • Putting worksheets, manuals, frameworks, etc. online that would lose considerable formatting or take lots of formatting work to convert to Web page format. Web users can read and print these documents with their perfect formatting, including graphics. Sending attachments via e-mail to users who may or may not have access to the same fonts and/or software used to create the original documents. Scanning paper documents (directions on page 35 in the Adobe Acrobat help menu).
Some examples of PDF documents are: • • • IRS tax return forms School performance reports Online catalogs • • • Teacher-created worksheets Monthly school newsletters Order forms
How do you create a PDF document? (Windows PC Users) Microsoft Office applications like Word, Excel and PowerPoint allow you to directly save Acrobat documents with one click. If you have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer, you will see an extra menu in these applications on the far right. Under the Acrobat menu, choose Convert to Adobe PDF.
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You will be prompted for a filename and can navigate to where you want to save the document. You can save into any folder on your computer or to network servers. If you have a folder containing your Web pages and want to put your document online, you can save directly into that folder. (Of course, if you were saving for the Web, you would not put a space in the filename. The example below would need to be Purchasing_Instructions instead.)
You will then have a document with a .pdf filename ending (as in the example window above with passwords.pdf). This file can be sent as an e-mail attachment or can be placed online. What if I’m not using a Microsoft Office application, use a Macintosh or want more options? You can create a PDF document from any application that you can print from. Just choose File > Print and instead of printing to your normal printer, choose Acrobat Distiller. (Macintosh users follow the directions on page 33 of the Adobe Acrobat help menu. You can use File > Print or drag and drop.)
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This option appears as a choice once you have Acrobat installed on your computer. If you do not see Acrobat Distiller and know you have the application installed you can also try File > Page Setup first, select Acrobat Distiller, and click OK. Then go to File > Print and print to the Distiller. Sometimes the Setup button is on the main Print window instead of listed as a separate menu item. (I’ve had to do this before in Inspiration and Photoshop Elements.) Once on the print window, you now have more options. You can print in landscape format or choose only certain pages to print. When you click OK on the print window, you will see a Save As… dialog box similar to the one pictured earlier. You can just click Save and save the document as is or you might also choose to click on Properties and then the Adobe PDF Settings tab, which gives you another palette of options:
• • • •
eBook – This setting saves the document in Acrobat version 4.0, which supports forms and
passwords. The fonts chosen will be retained and the image quality will be 150 DPI. This is the default setting that is chosen if you do not go to the Properties area. Press – This setting is mainly used for professional printers. It produces the highest quality document and has the largest file size. Print – This setting saves the images at a higher quality than eBook (300 DPI) and embeds the fonts into the document so the style is retained. The document is saved in version 4.0. Screen – This setting gives the lowest quality output but allows the most flexibility in requirements for the end user. It is meant for those documents that will primarily be viewed on a screen and reduces document download time by saving images at a lower quality (72 DPI) and not embedding fonts. Therefore, the next closest standard font will replace any fancy fonts the end user doesn’t have on their computer. Forms are not supported in this format as this choice saves the document in Acrobat 3.0.
Making appropriate choices in the Properties section allows you to tailor your document to the intended audience and their resources.
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Will hyperlinks in my document work on the Web in a PDF? Yes. This document has hyperlinks that were set in Microsoft Word (by highlighting and right-clicking on the word or phrase and pasting in a URL or, in older or Macintosh versions, by choosing Insert > Hyperlink) and those work as hyperlinks on the Internet in the PDF as well. This works as long as you choose the easy saving method mentioned on the first page of this document (choosing Acrobat > Convert to Adobe PDF from the menu bar). When choosing File > Print method, you will have to add hyperlinks within Acrobat (see page 100 of the Acrobat help menu for instructions). Can I create a PDF document if I don’t have the original application? You can create a PDF document from a file even if you don’t have the original application on your computer (where you have Acrobat installed). This is also effective between Macintosh and PC files. On the computer with the original application: • Open the application and choose File > Print. • Choose Print to File (Or whatever is similar on that particular computer/application. It might be called Save as File or Destination: File for example.) This will set the file to be saved as a PostScript job or file. • The filename ending should be .ps – if not, change it to .ps. • Save the file somewhere that is accessible by the computer with Adobe Acrobat installed (to a shared network area, to a disk, attached to an e-mail, etc.) On the computer with Adobe Acrobat: • Open the application called Acrobat Distiller. • Select your desired Job Option (see the distinctions above). • Choose File > Open and navigate to the saved .ps file. • You will be prompted to name and save your PDF file. (Acrobat will substitute standard fonts for any fonts used in the document that do not exist on this computer.)
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How do I link PDF documents on the Web? In Front Page: • Place the PDF document in your Front Page Web folder. Either move it there before opening Front Page or choose File > Import when you have your Front Page Web open. • Type the text on your Web page that you want to hyperlink. • Highlight the text that you want to hyperlink and either right-click on it or choose the hyperlink icon in the menu bar. (For more information on hyperlinking see the Front Page Web site.) • Choose the .pdf document from the file list window and click OK.
In Netscape Composer and Macromedia Dreamweaver: • Save the PDF to your Web site folder. • Link to the PDF document the same way you would link to another page in your site. Just make sure you choose Files of type: All Files so that PDFs will be displayed as well as HTML files.
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The following functions are performed with the Adobe Acrobat software application. You would need to open your PDF document within Acrobat to accomplish them.
Can I edit PDF documents using Acrobat? Yes, but you would only want to do this for very minor changes. If you’re going to make large-scale changes you should open and edit the original document and resave as a PDF. What are some ways I can combine or alter multiple PDF documents? • • • •
Document > Insert Pages
o allows you to insert another PDF into the current one.
Document > Replace Pages
o allows you to select pages in your current PDF that you want to replace with another PDF document.
Document > Delete Pages
o allows you to remove unwanted pages.
Document > Extract Pages
o allows you to create a new PDF from selected pages of the current document.
Are there any security measures I can take with my PDF documents? You can select File > Document Security to require a password to open the document. You can also specify whether the user can print, change, copy/extract content, or add/change comments and form fields. This allows more security than other Web documents. Can I make PDFs from online Web pages? Acrobat can function much in the same way that the program Web Whacker did. It can take entire Web pages – graphics and all – and save them as PDF documents that you can take with you to presentations, print for class handouts, and save for future reference in case the Web site disappears. To capture a Web site: • • • Choose File > Open Web Page. Type or paste in the URL of the Web site. Select how much of the Web site you want to get: o Levels: One level is one single Web page. Two levels would be the initial page and any pages linked from that page, etc. Be cautious with this. Large Web sites could have thousands of pages and could crash your server. It might be a good idea to start by choosing one level and then going back to get specific links you need. Any Web links active on the page will still be active in the PDF document so if you will have access to the Web, those are still clickable to outside sources. Or, you might choose to limit the amount by using one of the two choices below.
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o Only Get Pages Under Same Path downloads only Web pages that are subordinate to the URL you provide. o Stay on Same Server downloads only Web pages that are stored on the same server as the pages for the URL you provide.
How can I create forms with Acrobat? Select the Form Tool from the menu bar.
You will have a cross-hair tool to draw your form boxes with. Click and drag to draw a box for the fillin area. When you release the mouse, you will see a window where you can specify the field properties.
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• • •
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You don’t have to fill in the description area but you do need to fill in the name area. You can select different types of fields in the Type area, including text and check boxes, radio buttons and more. If you do not select line color or background color, your box will not show up. This is what you will want to do if you have already created boxes or places for data entry in another program like Word. If you need to create the area in Acrobat and want it to show, choose a line color and/or background color. Using the calculate tab, you can set a field to calculate the sum of other fields. Selecting other tabs gives you even more options to customize your fields.
When you click OK, your field will look like the second field below (in red):
The second field above shows that it is selected. When selected you can move, copy, paste, or resize a field and you can double-click on it at any time to change the field properties. You must have the Form Tool selected to make any changes to the form fields. Save your form and link it up to your Web site. This is what the above example looks like in the Internet browser (filled out):
Using Acrobat Reader 5.0 or above, users can fill out, save and print forms. Older versions of the Acrobat Reader do not allow saving of PDF documents. Here is an online government form example. You must choose the hand tool in Acrobat to be able to fill out forms in Acrobat reader. Can I add organizational features to my document like a table of contents or index? It’s a good idea to help the end user navigate through your document, especially if it is lengthy. Acrobat provides a variety of methods you can use for navigation, including thumbnails, bookmarks, articles, and links (hyperlinks to the Web or to perform other actions). These would be applied as the very last stage when you have a completed PDF document. This ensures that you won’t have to change them if you decide to edit your document further. See the Adobe help menu pages for instructions on deciding on and adding each element (page 90-102 of the Adobe Acrobat help menu).
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