Category: Acrobat

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 you, in both Acrobat and Reader, a Find command on the 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 one of your customers will call on the Search command: you'll put it right in their hands and they won't be able to resist using it!

In the most binary way, you always do two things to a PDF page: you open and close it. You can use these two page states as a trigger for an action, such as Edit > Search.

1. Open any PDF file, and then open the Pages Panel.
2. Right-click on the first page icon, and choose Page Properties.
3. Select the Actions tab.

   The two page states I mentioned above are listed as Triggers.

4. Select Page Open as the trigger, and choose Execute a menu item as the Action.
5. Click the Add button to bring up a list of possible commands to execute.
6. Choose Edit>Search from this list and click OK.

   

When the first page in your PDF is opened, it will automatically trigger the Edit > Search command, showing the normally hidden Search panel without your customer even knowing how to display the feature.

Page Actions are very powerful, and multiple actions can be assigned to a single trigger. Experiment and have fun with this.

Last week, a news story broke regarding a PDF file that was publically posted by the Transportation Security Administration. It contained their Screening Management Standard Operating Procedures.

The PDF was filled with specifics regarding how passengers are screened at security checkpoints at airports. Not just little tidbits of info, but SECRET stuff, like which 12 passports will instantly get you shunted over for secondary screening simply by showing them to the ID-checking agent. There were details on the calibration process of the metal detectors and the procedure for screening foreign dignitaries.

The folks that released this document knew that there was sensitive information contained within the PDF because they redacted the delicate sections (redacted documents are documents that have had sensitive information removed or blacked out). But did they redact the information?

TSA employees apparently drew black boxes over the secret information. Huh? That's not redacting… that's covering! ANYONE can see what's underneath the black box if they simply know how to copy and paste. Doesn't make you feel too safe when flying if this is how the TSA handles sensitive material issues.

In Acrobat 8, Adobe included a set of redaction tools to virtually eliminate text or sections of a PDF page. True PDF redactions are thorough and irreversible. In Acrobat 9, the redaction tools have been enhanced and allow for automatic file renaming and advanced Search and Redact option.

There are training classes in Acrobat 9 Professional. If your workflow entails using PDF files, you can guess at how to do things. The TSA did, and fortunately someone caught their COLOSSAL mistake–hopefully in time. In the mean time, an unknown number of TSA employees have been placed on leave pending the outcome of the internal investigation. A smarter (and safer) decision would have been to take a class from an Adobe Certified Instructor… like me. Click here for more information and class dates.

And now, some more infamous bad redactions through history:

Here's a neat little trick that can help you describe a position on a PDF page to a colleague, even if they are not in the same room (or hemisphere). If you are working with a PDF page that has several similar regions on it, describing the proper object can be tricky. For example: "Look at the widget on the left side of the page, near the middle, but a little lower" just doesn't cut it.

What if there was a way to describe an exact position on a page? If you haven't discovered it yet, Acrobat DOES sport rulers, but they are hidden by default. To see them, press [Ctrl] [R] ([Command] [R] on a Mac). With the rulers visible, you can determine your cursor's page position by noting the lines that appear on the rulers as you move your mouse around the page–but that's a visual thing and the lines won't give you the EXACT coordinates of a specific spot on your page.

To determine your cursor's exact position, you only need to turn on a feature called Cursor Coordinates. Choose View > Cursor Coordinates. A small black information box appears in the lower left of your view panel. It shows your current cursor location, in your preferred document measurement system.

Want to change your measurement units to points, picas, millimeters, inches? Choose to Edit > Preferences (Acrobat > Preferences on Mac), select Units & Guides, and dial in your preferred choice.

The small black box with the coordinates can be dragged around the page as you see fit. If it disappears (and mine has a few times), change your page view from scrolling to single page view, as it apparently likes this view, and wants to hide in scrolling view.

And that's this week's Acrobat 9 tip… coming to you 38 inches from my kitchen sliding glass door, and 129 inches from my stove.

Learn what PDF technology is all about, and how to use Acrobat 9 Professional to create, edit and enhance your PDF files. Click here for more information and class dates.

When a PDF file is initially created, it is relatively lifeless. It's readable and printable, but there is no interactivity enabled, unless you used the PDFMaker to create bookmarks from your Word styles.

Most of my time is spent enhancing PDF files into interactive documents, complete with links, bookmarks, buttons and actions. These kinds of enhancements entice your viewing audience to actually read your documents.

Long PDF files are enhanced with bookmarks, allowing the reader to find specific chapters or topics quickly. PDF files that are released for review are annotated with electronic comments. The next trick is to somehow get your audience to use these features.

I have found that the most irresistible feature for customers is a button. You hope folks will click on your bookmarks, but if you include a button, they WILL click it!

PDF buttons are designed with either the Button Tool on the Advanced Editing Toolbar, or the same tool in the Forms Creation Interface. The Actions tab on the Button Properties dialog box is where the button is 'taught' what to do.

An action is triggered by any mouse event. What many people don't realize, I am finding, is that any mouse event can actually trigger multiple actions.

I designed a form for a client and thought it might be interesting to have the buttons not only perform their expected function, but to sound an audible click for both the mouse down and mouse up states. You can see in the picture below how this is done. When the mouse button is down, it plays click.wav. When the mouse button is released (mouse up), it plays clack.wav AND executes the menu item:File>Print.

The sounds are very subtle, but the client loves it, and it compels the audience to be more interactive with the documents. That client never let me give him another form WITHOUT the noisy buttons.

The sky's the limit with stacking actions. Simply revisit the Add button to include yet another action.

Click, Clack! Nice.

Learn what PDF technology is all about, and how to use Acrobat 9 Professional to create, edit and enhance your PDF files. Click here for more information and class dates.