Acrobat
Tips & tricks
PDF from Word
PDF2Office Personal v2.0 is a PDF document conversion and data extraction plug-in for Microsoft Word. It will convert a PDF document into fully editable text while retaining the original formatting of the document. It identifies and recreates paragraphs, makes indentations, applies styles, creates columns, recreates tables, and processes headers and footers automatically. It can be set to work with whole documents or a specified range of pages, and can be set to ignore images and other elements. Password protected PDF documents will still need the original password. The Mac version will not open password protected PDF documents. Settings allow conversions to apply page breaks, annotations, and tables and graphs. Images can be converted to JPEG, specifying quality. Works with Word 95-2003 (Windows), Word 6.0, 98-2004 (Macintosh) RTF (Win/Mac), Appleworks, Unicode, Text, and HTML. Images can be exported as JPEG, TIFF, PNG, PICT, PSD, QT, and BMP. There is also support for many languages. Now Tiger aware. $59.
Useful Properties
When editing a document, it's usually helpful to have the Properties toolbar open. The contents will change according to the tool selected; it nearly always offers faster access to choices than the regular menus, and sometimes it offers choices available nowhere else.
Now, where was I?
If you have moved from one page to another using a link or bookmark, you can use Alt+Left Arrow to return to the page where the link was located. This will also work from one document to another, even if you go from one to another without a link.If you have moved from one page to another using a link or bookmark, you can use Alt+Left Arrow to return to the page where the link was located. This will also work from one document to another, even if you go from one to another without a link.
Placing watermarks
When you add a watermark to a series of pages, only the first page shows up in the preview on the right of the screen. So if there is a page that needs critical positioning, move that page to the first page by opening the page tab widely so you can see the first page and the page that needs positioning. Drag it to the first page position, place the watermark, and then move it back to the original page location.
PDF chunking
PDF Splitter and Merger 2.0 will do just what its name implies. It does this much faster than doing the same thing within Acrobat. It is useful with really large documents, where you can split the file into discrete chunks. This is a very handy tool for people who receive large PDF files from authors and book designers. There is a 10-day free trial version. $60.
Linking within
Sometimes you need to link from a Web page to a specific location within a PDF file. It's actually quite easy but is rarely done. Usually the link seems to go to page one, leaving you to find the particular area of interest. To make a page-specific link, simply add the PDF document name and a page reference at the end. The actual link on the Web page will look like: http://www.mydo main.com/PDF name.pdf#page=15. The HTML code is:
Drop on a Droplet
If you regularly preflight PDF files, you can create a droplet on your desktop, which will run whatever tests you want by just dragging a PDF file onto it. To create the droplet, which is in reality a very small application, set up the preflight profile you want, making sure that it is listed in the Preflight dialog box. In the Preflight dialog box, choose Create Preflight Droplet from the Options menu, and select a Preflight profile. Next select the check box to the left of the pop-up menu and choose what you want Preflight to do with any files that pass inspection. If you want to place them in a new folder, you should have it made already, along with a folder for those that fail the preflight. Then select the reporting option for the folder, and click Settings to specify the type of report and amount of detail. Click Success Folder, and specify the folder for the PDF files that pass inspection and their reports, and next do the same for the Error section for the files that fail. This will place a droplet that will automatically preflight any PDF files. The files are inspected and saved in the specified folders.
