Category: Adobe’s Technical Communication Suite

by David R. Mankin  

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 and 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 an empty spot of your toolbar area deselect Find 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).

When you click on the Search button (or choose 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 to its relevance.

In my online Acrobat classes, I refer to the difference between Acrobat's Find and Search commands like driving a VW Beetle and a 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.

Join me online and learn, hands-on, how to unlock the power of Acrobat. Click here for more details.

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David R. Mankin is a Certified Technical Trainer, desktop publisher, computer graphic artist, and Web page developer. He is an Adobe-Certified Expert in Acrobat.

by David R. Mankin  

In the early days of Acrobat's life, there was a great deal of emphasis placed on getting files converted or imported into the PDF format. Taking data, text and images out of a PDF for use elsewhere apparently wasn't on the radar.

I remember purchasing a plug-in for Acrobat 3 that allowed the exporting of a PDF to RTF. (Rich Text Format… a document file format developed by Microsoft for cross-platform document interchange–most word processors are able to read and write RTF documents.) It cost me $35, and since I was the only kid on the block who could export out of Acrobat, it paid for itself quickly.

Adobe soon built a variety of ways to export out of PDF files into Acrobat. While well hidden, the Save As dialogue box has allowed you to save as RTF and even Microsoft Word for several versions. Acrobat 8 included an Export task button, but it has vanished in version 9. Not to worry–there is an Export Command located in the File menu.

Rather than exporting a whole document out of Acrobat, I'll focus on a table within a PDF page. Suppose you'd like to have this table's data in a spreadsheet so you can manipulate it. There's no need to retype the data into Excel. All you need to do is use Acrobat's Selection tool to highlight the content you wish to export.

Next, right-click the selected text. There are three useful options: Copy as Table, Save as Table, and Open Table in Spreadsheet.

Selecting Open Table in Spreadsheet takes the selected portion of your PDF-based table and drops it directly and neatly into an Excel spreadsheet. This is CRAZY easy and very useful. (Mac users will only have Copy as Table and Save as Table available).

There are hidden gems throughout Acrobat 9. If you don't want to wait for them to trickle to you in these weekly tips, join me online and learn, hands-on, how to unlock the power of Acrobat. Click here for more details.

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David R. Mankin is a Certified Technical Trainer, desktop publisher, computer graphic artist, and Web page developer. He is an Adobe-Certified Expert in Acrobat.

by David R. Mankin  

 

I've written previously about Adobe's amazing online service– Acrobat.com. Elegant, useful and FREE! Aside from online file storage and file sharing, there is a nice word processor called Buzzword. Many of us raced to sign up for the service, and have even opted to upgrade to the pay service for more functionality.  Acrobat.com Premium is $39 monthly, or $390 per year. Some of the perks include unlimited online PDF creation, 20-person meetings online and larger file sharing.

Not sitting still with this nice offering, Adobe has continued to work on new and improved services. I recently wrote about the cool online application at https://labs1.acrobat.com–Presentations (a quick way to produce PowerPoint-like presentations online WITHOUT the need to have Powerpoint on your computer).

The latest offering to come to the public's use is called Tables.  Using Tables, Adobe has offers you with an spreadsheet program (similar to Excel). These online tables can be shared with others simultaneously!  Two or more coworkers can have the same online-based file open at once, and the service keeps track of everyone's changes & shows them in real time to others.

Don't let the title TABLES lull you into thinking that your files are simply tables (in the word processing way). Columns can be formatted for specific data types, attributes such as decimal places can be defined, and calculations are also available. Data can be sorted and filtered.

To try out Tables, visit https://labs1.acrobat.com. If you do not have an Acrobat.com account yet, sign up for one. It's free. Play, enjoy, and stay tuned.  I'll bet there's something new and cool up ahead and online.

Come learn Acrobat! Join Dave online and learn, hands-on, how to unlock the power of Acrobat. Click here for more details.

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David R. Mankin is a Certified Technical Trainer, desktop publisher, computer graphic artist, and Web page developer. He is an Adobe-Certified Expert in Acrobat.

by David R. Mankin  

Adobe's Bridge is a 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 a PC (or ctrl-click on a Mac) and 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 (for instance, 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.

Come learn Acrobat! Join Dave online and learn, hands-on, how to unlock the power of Acrobat. Click here for more details.

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David R. Mankin is a Certified Technical Trainer, desktop publisher, computer graphic artist, and Web page developer. He is an Adobe-Certified Expert in Acrobat.

 

1. Create a document that is smaller than the paper you will be printing on. For example, create a 7 in x 9 in page, with the intent to print it on 8.5 in x 11 in paper.
2. Choose File > Save as (Frame 7/8) or choose File > Save as PDF (Frame 9) to save the file as a pdf.
3. Choose Registration Marks: Western
4. Type in the printed page size (in this example 8.5 in x 11 in) and click Set.

   

Done! Step number 4 was the one that tripped up my student, who had read the help files and tried in vain to make it work. Frame defaults the paper size to the document size. If you forget to change the paper size to a size that is larger than the document file, the crop marks won't show up!

by David R. Mankin  

People who attend my Acrobat classes 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 newfound skills which allow them to enhance their PDF files interactively.

Folks love bookmarks and links. They are thrilled with buttons and actions. But the one feature of Acrobat itself that no one is quite prepared for is that PDF files that containing live text (not images of scanned text) can be read to them out loud. Unlike Web sites, no additional screen reading 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.' Choose 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 1980s video arcade. You can go to Acrobat's Preferences and select Reading to edit the voice settings. There are plenty of 3rd party vendors that sell amazingly realistic computer synthesized voices such as NeoSpeech.

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

Join Dave online and learn how to unlock the power of Acrobat. Click here for more details.

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David R. Mankin is a Certified Technical Trainer, desktop publisher, computer graphic artist, and Web page developer. He is an Adobe-Certified Expert in Acrobat

by David R. Mankin  

Many PDF files actually have dual personalities–they exist in the print world as traditionally printed documents, and as electronic paperless files.

One problem that can arise from this scenario is that a traditional print document's cover page and preface material will not carry traditional page numbers.

Take a look at any book on your bookshelf. The preface material and table of contents will likely have a separate numbering system–often times in lower case roman numerals. The "regular" Arabic numbering will begin when the book's subject matter begins.

Converting this same document to PDF automatically throws a monkey wrench into the works. The first page of any PDF file will initially be page 1. Perform a Go To Page command and you'll land on a different page than if you opened the print version.

How can you make the PDF version match the traditional print page numbers of its printed counterpart? Read on…

In this example, I have selected pages 1-4 in the Pages Palette, and then clicked on the palette's Options button (the gears).

I then selected the Number Pages command. I dialed in new settings for those selected pages by choosing Begin New Section and specifying Lower Case Alphas from the check list.

The end result is a document with pages i – iv as preface material and the main content beginning on the document's fifth page, but carrying the page number 1. Now the PDF file matches the print version's page numbers exactly.

These small details make your PDF files stand out from the rest. To learn more… MUCH more, enroll in an Acrobat 9 class.  Click here for more details.

 

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David R. Mankin is a Certified Technical Trainer, desktop publisher, computer graphic artist, and Web page developer. He is an Adobe-Certified Expert in Acrobat.

by David R. Mankin  

I recently came across an article that reported some known issues between Adobe Captivate 4 and Microsoft Windows XP. Specifically, there is possible corruption in the Windows registry or incorrect permissions. The net result is that Captivate exhibits some or all of the following behaviors:

Do any of these issues sound familiar? If so, this is no time to panic as you ask yourself that age-old question: "What's a Captivate developer to do?" Read on…

Microsoft has a utility called SubInACL that might help. According to Microsoft, "SubInACL is a command-line tool that enables administrators to obtain security information about files, registry keys and services, and transfer this information from user to user, from local or global group to group, and from domain to domain."

While it may not sound like SubInACL will be much use where Captivate is concerned, the program may fix things so that Captivate works properly in Windows XP (hey, it's worth a shot).

Here is how you use the SubInACL utility: