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Get Fit!

Clint — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 22:28:00 GMT

This is totally off my usual topic of Acrobat. Having drunk the Acrobat Kool-Aid, I live and breathe Acrobat, but sometimes I need a break and have gotten into fitness too. The biggest thing that has helped me is my Polar watch, www.polarusa.com. It sets up training programs and weekly goals. I've significantly improved my fitness and with it, I've been able to track it. I put this PDF together for a friend and thought it might help others get fit so am including it here.

Get fit!

Download PDF here

Acrobat Redaction Webinar CORRECTION

Clint — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 15:05:00 GMT

I was sent the wrong link for the Redaction webinar recording. Here's the correct one: http://emergent.na3.acrobat.com/p45882300/

Redaction webinar

Clint — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 14:00:00 GMT

Here's a recording on redacting information in PDFs using Acrobat: http://emergent.na3.acrobat.com/p45882300/
This webinar was for DHS (Department of Homeland Security) and sponsored by Emergent: http://www.emergent360.com/vendor/adobe/ and Adobe: http://www.adobe.com . It was great to have the opportunity to dig into the weeds of one important aspect of Acrobat and help DHS.

Comment on Permanent Cropping from Dave Stromfeld, The Acrobat Team

Clint — Tue, 18 May 2010 01:39:00 GMT

Please note the comment from Adobe's Dave Stromfeld. He notes that Document> Examine Document will also permanently crop a PDF. I really appreciate the comments and learned something new. Thanks, Dave!!

From the Acrobat Help: "Deleted Hidden Page And Image Content PDFs sometimes retain content that has been removed and which is no longer visible, such as cropped or deleted pages, or deleted images."
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Acrobat/9.0/Standard/WS7E9FA147-10E3-4391-9CB6-6E44FBDA8856.w.html

Here's the result of running Examine Document on a cropped PDF:

Permanent Cropping PDFs

Clint — Mon, 17 May 2010 17:29:00 GMT

Totally trusting the esteemed Jean-Claude Tremblay, after his comment, and my post regarding it, I wanted to try it. So using the link bit.ly/wjCva, I downloaded the prepress profile and installed it. Then I made a PDF from an image and cropped it in Acrobat.

Upon reopening the Document> Crop Pages dialog you can see that the cropped elements are still there and could be uncropped:

Then I selected "Set Media Box to Crop box and Remove objects outside Cropbox" and clicked Analyze and Fix:

A second or two later the Preflight profiles dialog indicated that it had been done:

Next I went back to the Crop dialog (Document> Crop pages) to see that the cropped part of the image was totally gone and it is:

And as Jean-Claude notes, a special thanks Leonard Rosenthal of Adobe for his expertise.

More on Cropping PDFs and Prepress

Clint — Mon, 17 May 2010 16:03:00 GMT

Jean-Claude Tremblay (an Acrobat expert and fellow PDF traveler) made this excellent comment on cropping PDFs and prepress issues. Note the link to his blog and the custom profile available there:

"You mention in your post that the information is not removed in the PDF and that’s true. It is also true that when processed by some rips the cropping will not be preserved. Fortunately, both issues can be fix with a custom Preflight profile. I have blogged about this and offer a link to download the custom profile. http://bit.ly/pdfcrop "

Thanks, Jean-Claude!! info@proficiografik.com, http://www.proficiografik.com

Cropping PDFs

Clint — Thu, 06 May 2010 14:51:00 GMT

To crop a PDF, use the Crop Tool, Document> Crop Pages. To access the Crop Tool faster, use the keyboard shortcut, “Shift-Cmd/Control_T”

Be aware that cropping a PDF does not actually remove information from the PDF. The “crop” can be un-done at anytime by opening the Crop Tool Dialog box, Document> Crop Pages.

Click here to download PDF tutorial.

Acrobat, PDF workflows, forms design and development, and training is available. Cut your workflows in half and significantly reduce your business costs.

Reset / Clear Forms

Clint — Thu, 06 May 2010 02:12:00 GMT

As a best practice in form design, forms should include a “Reset” button to clear all the fields to reuse the form or to clear
mistakes. Reset buttons are usually set to clear all the fields. In specific cases, a “Reset” button might be used to clear specific
fields and leave the others untouched.

With a full version of Acrobat 9 Standard, Acrobat 9 Pro, and Acrobat Pro Extended there is also a “Clear Form” menu item
at the bottom of the Form menu. This function is not available in the Adobe Reader.

Click here to download PDF Tutorial.

PDF workflow, forms design and development, and training is available. Cut your workflow in half and significantly reduce costs.

Approving a PDF with the Dynamic Approval Stamp

Clint — Thu, 06 May 2010 01:58:00 GMT

Built into Acrobat is a dynamic approval stamp. It is dynamic by including the name of the user, the time and date of the stamp. The first time it is selected, a dialog will appear requiring the user to add their name and at minimum, their email address.

The commenting functionality is available in the free Adobe Reader, when the PDF has been sent from a user with a full version of Acrobat through the Comment Review process or Reader enabled, by a user of a full version of Acrobat.
For users of Reader the Comment & Markup toolbar will automatically appear on a PDF that has been enabled. For users of a full version of Acrobat select Comment> Show Comment & Markup Tools.

Click here to download PDF Tutorial.

Creating Watermarks for PDFs

Clint — Thu, 06 May 2010 01:51:00 GMT

Watermarks are added to a PDF to indicate and add additional information and make it more obvious. The most common watermarks are Confidential, Secret, and Top Secret. Another common watermark is a companies logo or other artwork.

Watermarks can be easily removed and edited. Securing a PDF with a watermark may be appropriate.

Click here to download PDF tutorial.

Death for Dummies

Clint — Tue, 04 May 2010 23:06:00 GMT

This is a bit off topic for me, but it is is very useful information. My mother recently passed away, which was sad, but expected and a blessing and a relief for her. She was in stage 7 Alzheimer’s. My father passed away 2 years ago. Fortunately they and we had prepared for their passing. My brother, Troy, helped manage their finances for the past few years and shouldered the burden of managing their estate with our (I have a sister as well) advice, consent and blessing. As everything went smoothly, he was asked by friends what was involved and what to do. He wrote “Death for Dummies” (his title and sardonic humor, we’re alike in many ways) and it’s worth sharing.

Click here to download “Death for Dummies”

Creating a Customize Stamp in Acrobat

Clint — Tue, 04 May 2010 16:57:00 GMT

A stamp can be created with any file that is made into a PDF, in other words, anything such as something created in Word, PowerPoint, a graphics application, or anything else. In this example I used a logo. From that graphic, create a PDF, File> Create PDF> From File or use the Adobe PDF Print Driver to create a PDF. This process requires a full version of Acrobat.

In the Comment & Markup Toolbar (Comment> Show Comment & Markup Tools), select the down arrow on the right of the Rubber Stamp tool.
Select Create Custom Stamp.
Click Browse and select the PDF to use as a stamp. Click OK.
Select the location for the stamp. Dynamic is fastest as it’s closest to the top.
Name the stamp.

Note: For faster access to stamps used regularly, make them Favorites.
Using the arrow by the Stamp tool, select Favorites> Add Current Stamp to Favorites.
The new stamp now appears at the top of the drop down menu.

Click here for PDF tutorial.

Customized Acrobat training available to save you time and money.

Redaction Tool Properties - Colors

Clint — Tue, 04 May 2010 16:49:00 GMT

This is an update of a previous post on Redaction colors in Acrobat.

Click here to download PDF tutorial.

Top Ten Acrobat Features

Clint — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:06:00 GMT

As an Acrobat consultant (I do Acrobat training and consulting, as well as, spreading the good word about Acrobat for Adobe) I live and breathe PDFs. I find very few people really know all Acrobat can do to save time and money. So much of software training, is just making people aware of all that can be done with an application, Acrobat in this case. Here is a list of my favorite features that are beneficial to every Acrobat user:

1. Creating PDFs from web pages, scans, email in Outlook, Office applications, images into PDF slide shows, and most any other file, if no other way than simply printing to PDF makes documents easy to access, archive, and share. PDF is the lingua franca of document formats. In most cases (somewhat depending on the final purpose), I prefer getting PDFs because I know it looks like what the author intended, particularly because it includes all the fonts. My favorite here is making a PDF from a web page. Simply copy the URL, File> Create PDF> From Web Page, paste the URL and the result is a PDF where all the links live and you can append more pages to the document or link to that page. It will also include Flash video embedded in the page. I use this all the time. It's great for research. Acrobat 9 does a much better jog of capturing a web page than previous versions.

2. Combining multiple PDFs into a single PDF. This is a fast easy way to combine and organize documents. From simply combining invoices with expense reports to putting together a large research project. No format is easier to combine than PDFs. Taking this a step further, add headers and/or footers to the resulting PDF for more consistency and organization. You can also add watermarks and backgrounds, such as "Confidential" to all the pages of hte combined PDF.

3. Combining multiple documents into a single PDF Portfolio. For bigger projects that contain a number of documents that are better organized as single documents with a "PDF wrapper," Portfolios are the way to go. Portfolios can not only contain multiple PDFs but other file formats as well such as MS Office documents in their original formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt) and many others, including video. In the case of Office documents you can even open the document from Acrobat, edit it in the original Office application, save it, and the Portfolio will update with the edits. Best of all, you can even create your own identity, a skin as it's known in Portfolios, and use it for all the Portfolios you create.

4. OCR scanned documents so the text is searchable and copyable. This isn't a new feature, but the new OCR engine, Clear Scan, in Acrobat 9 is faster and more accurate than previous versions. Many scanners use PDF as their default format, but it's still just an image until it is OCRed. I've even taken screen shots and OCRed that to save time retyping. The key here is to choose Clear Scan in the Edit Document> OCR Text Recognition> Recognize Text User OCR dialog. It isn't the default method. The other thing to be aware of is the images must be 144 ppi or higher to OCR.

5. Fill-able, Submit-able forms is something I do all the time (I create a lot of forms for Adobe, for example). There is nothing worse, when we are using forms, than a non-fillable form. The Form Wizard in Acrobat 9 makes is so easy, there is no excuse not to make the form fillable. Of course, the ease of automatice form creation does depend on the original form. You may need to do some or all of the field creation by hand. For more information on creating fillable forms, see Form_BestPractices.pdf in an earlier post.

6. Review and Comment workflow is one of the biggest timesavers in Acrobat, if only everyone would use it. Text edits, in particular, make updating simple and fast, plus with the Comment and Review workflow it's easy to do a "shared review" so everyone can see everyone's edits and all those changes appear on a single PDF. No more going through multiple documents and missing someone's edits. I have found this can save up to 80% of the time it takes to edit a document with a team of editors.

7. Search-ability is not a new feature but from my experience, it's not as widely used as Find which appears in the tool bar. With Search, you can search text in multiple documents and point it exactly where you want it to look. It will even search an entire drive or server looking for specific text within PDFs. With thousands of PDFs myself, I find this very useful and it's fast.

8. Redaction is another useful function I use on a regular basis. As opposed to everything I've noted so far, redaction is removing information from a PDF. A simple example is going back to my expense reports. Sometimes I lose a receipt and need it for my expense report. In that case, I download my credit card statement, redact the cc number and other expenses that don't apply to that job. You can even search for numbers like Social Security numbers, etc. It's fast, easy and handy.

9. Interactive PDFs are what I used to refer to as "compelling PDFs," PDFs that are more than just an electronic version of a paper document. This can be as simple as navigation, adding bookmarks and links, to page actions as well as video and audio in a PDF. Flash videos can now be embedded and Acrobat 9 is the first version to totally implement Flash. It's at it's least about readability and ease of use. Making compelling PDFs is the way to go if you want to more effectively get your message across. This is just the simple stuff on interactive PDFs. There is a whole lot more you can do, particularly in Acrobat 9, the first version to implement Flash into PDFs.

10. Acrobat.com is a great way to share and store large PDFs and other documents. It can also be used to track reviews and form responses. You can even create and share word processing documents (Buzzword), spreadsheets (Table), and presentations (Presentation). The best part is you can also share your screen with 2 others and it's all for free. You can get more functionality by subscribing at a modest monthly cost.

I've only hit on ten of the highlights. In writing this, I kept thinking of other features I use all the time. I'll have to do a second top ten soon. Stay tuned.

Quick Response Codes in Esquire

Clint — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 02:51:00 GMT

Continuing the mulitchannel marketing discussion with Quick Response codes, the March issue of Esquire has an excellent example. It's an article on "Th Esquire Collection, Forget about all the clothes you have or the clothes you want: These are the only twenty-five articles of clothing—the absolute essentials—that every man needs to live a comfortable, well-dressed life"

Beyond the hyperbole, there is a sidebar explaining the EZcode, a type of Quick Response code, and recommending Scan Life to scan it with your smart phone camera. I scanned the code for the Waxwear Duffel Bag and the from the code you can buy the bag, call to order, learn how to pack the bag, what to pack in a bag and subscribe to Esquire:

I scanned (traditional scanner) 2 pages of the article and attached it here, The codes can be scanned directly from the screen.

I think this technology has a lot to offer in a variety of applications.

Multichannel Marketing with Quick Response Codes (QRCs)

Clint — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 19:06:00 GMT

QR codes (QRCs), short of Quick Response codes are appearing more frequently in magazines, ads and other promotional materials. (see below) Basically they are 2-dimensional barcodes than can contain up to 4,000 characters and scanning them will take you to a website (with videos and podcasts), a PURL, or simply include more information, such as contact information on a business card, or a restaurants menu and specials for the day. They are a way to extend print media marketing beyond ink-on-paper printing.

I had noticed them and heard what they were, but only recently dug into the topic with my friend, Daniel Dejan, North American ETC Print & Creative Manager for Sappi Fine Paper, asked me to help with some research on QRCs and Augmented Reality (more on that in an upcoming post). Since then, I see them everywhere. I was recently in San Jose and met a gentleman (he describes himself as a pirate), Pablo Arrieta from Columbia (the country), who was into both technologies in a big way. We immediately hit it off. He gave me a textbook he had written that included QRCs so students could get more information about a topic. His site is hipertexto.gruponormadigital.com/manos/ (it's in Spanish).

QRCs were created in 1994 by Denso-Wave, a Japanese corporation. They have become very popular there, particularly among teenagers and young adults. They are also being widely seen in Europe.

To read a QRC, you need a scanning app on a smart phone such as an iPhone or Droid. On my iPhone, I use Scan Life (available at the App Store), but there are a number of others available. With the app, simply scan the code and it will take you to a website or whatever the code is linked to. My example links directly back to this blog.

I created the example above for free here: qreateandtrack.com/2009/11/13/how-to-create-a-qr-code/
And here is another site I've used to create QRCs:
http://qrcode.kaywa.com/

One of the biggest players to use QRCs and develop marketing programs around them is interlinkONE: interlinkone.com/. They can help you track responses and develop whole marketing programs around the data. They also generate QRCs and have the qreateandtrack.com site I used to create the example.

I think this technology is more than just hype and offers the real potential to go beyond print into multichannel marketing. It offers potential beyond marketing as well. Governments and institutions can use the technology to provide more information to constituents. Small business can use it as an inexpensive way to increase traffic. Another friend uses it at the end of his presentations with his contact information. As smart phones with cameras proliferate, so will QRCs.

My question to you is do you think this technology is to "techy" for the general public? Will downloading the scanning apps dissuade use of QRCs, particularly as different scanning apps may be necessary for different countries? Please comment; I'd really like to hear from readers.

Note: Sinced I used his name, I sent this to my friend Daniel Dejan for his input. He sent back Margie Dana's PrintTip containing similar information available by subscription on her site: www.bostonprintbuyers.com/ It's particularly interesting on the timing and for me, confirms that QRCs are having an impact. Again, please send your comments.

Verifying Digital Signatures

Clint — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:36:00 GMT

Digital Signature Certificates and Validation

When you open a digitally signed PDF, it will alert you that the signature needs validating. Personally, I’ve sent dozens of digitally signed PDFs. No one has asked to validate my signature. I think there are two reasons for this:

(1) My digital signature looks like my “wet” signature (see tutorial on creating a digital signature).
(2) Most users aren’t familiar with digital signatures and despite the alert, don’t bother to validate. Even if they do, they have no idea how to make sure the signature is valid, other than the sender’s word.

In a business workflow, it is important to validate digital signatures. It’s similar to showing your ID when using a credit card. It’s easy to do. Simply send the certificate that was generated when your digital signature was created.

Here’s how:
When you open a digitally signed PDF, a blue bar appears above the page noting the signatures have not been validated. To validate the signature, click the Signature Panel button to open the signature panel, and click Validate All to validate the signature. If there is no certificate to validate the signature, a note will appear that the signature has a problem. If a digital signature certificate is available, the signature is noted as valid.

To ensure the recipient can validate your signature, send your certificate. This is easy and can be done from the free Adobe Reader and a full version of Acrobat.
Reader: Document > Security Settings
Acrobat: Advanced > Security Settings

Select Digital IDs > Export

At this point you can directly email the certificate to the recipient or save it and email it later as well as send it to other recipients.

Select Email or Save the certificate.

Selecting Email generates an email with a pre-composed Subject and message. Add the To: email address and click Email. The message can be edited as desired.
Select Save the certificate as a file and the Save As dialog appears to save the.FDF file for later email or exchange.

In a corporate environment, saving the certificate and storing it in a folder, on a server, that is available to everyone in the company, will enable in-house signature verification. This is an excellent way to begin implementing a digital signature workflow.

When the recipient receives the email with the attached certificate (as noted in the email message), double-clicking the FDF Data Exchange File will start Acrobat and load the certificate. The recipient will now be able to verify your digital signature.

Click here to download PDF tutorial.

Creating a Digital Signature with the Adobe Reader

Clint — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:09:00 GMT

Currently many contracts and other legal documents are emailed as PDFs that must be printed, signed, scanned and returned. Digital signatures save time and money, both for printing and shipping documents back and forth. Having experienced this many times, it’s time consuming and frustrating when a digital signature would work and is legal in the US as well as the EU (somewhat depending on jurisdictions).

Recently working with an attorney, I digitally signed documents. At one point she asked that I “wet sign” a PDF document noting that the court “may not” accept my digital signature. Grumbling to myself, I printed, signed, scanned and returned the document by email. I also digitally signed a copy of it and noted how my digital signature and “wet signature” looked exactly the same. From that point on she accepted my digital signature with one exception, on a document that had to be notarized.

For a basic summary on digital signatures with links to legal and other references see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_signature. From this article: “In many countries, including the United States, the European Union and Australia, electronic signatures (when recognized under the law of each jurisdiction) have the same legal consequences as the more traditional forms of executing of documents.”

Creating digital signatures is easy to do with any version of Acrobat, including the free Adobe Reader. This tutorial uses Reader to create a digital signature.

Under the Document menu in Reader or the Advanced menu in Acrobat, select Security Settings.
Select Digital IDs and click Add ID. Select “A new digital ID I want to create now.”

Select either a New PDCS#12 or a Windows Certificate Store ID. Both essentially work the same way. Click Next.
Create a password for the digital ID. The password will be used every time you sign a document. Click Finish.

At the point you have created a digital ID. The default digital signature uses standard text (Arial). It’s valid, but the perception may be that it isn’t, and may cause acceptance problems. Take it a step further, and use your signature as the ID, it will be accepted more widely if it looks like your “wet signature.”
Go to Edit> Preferences.

You need a PDF file with your signature in it. Sign a piece of paper, scan it (many current scanners create PDFs as their default format). Use a full version of Acrobat to convert a JPG or TIFF to a PDF. If you have Photoshop, save the scan as Photoshop PDF. If you have no other way, you can turn a scan of your signature into a PDF at
Acrobat.com. Go to
http://www.adobe.com/acom/createpdf/ sign up for Acrobat.com (it’s free) and use it to create a PDF from the scanned signature.

Note: The example signature used here is a font called JoeHand from 1001 Fonts www.1001fonts.com/font_details.html?font_id=190

In Preferences, select Security, click New. There are three “Configure Signature Appearances”:
No Graphic
Imported Graphic
Name

As noted, for wider acceptance of your digital signature, select Imported Graphic. Click Browse and select the PDF scan of your signature. In the Configure Text area, you can turn off what you do not want to show with your signature. Click OK in the Select Picture dialog and OK in the Configure Signature Appearance dialog, your digital signature is ready to use.

To use a digital signature in the free Reader, the PDF must be enabled for Reader in a full version of Acrobat. Extend features in Adobe Reader is under the Advanced menu.

The results, a digitally signed PDF document.

Click here to download PDF tutorial.

Creating Bookmarks & Links in InDesign for PDF Navigation

Clint — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 19:49:00 GMT

This is the simplest export from InDesign to PDF as it is all done automatically. In the preceeding book example, the table of contents was generated using paragraph styles. On File> Export (Cmd/Cntrl-E) check both Bookmarks and Hyperlinks. Bookmarks, obviously creates the bookmarks and Hyperlinks makes links in the table to contents to navigate directly to the appropriate chapter beginning.

In this example, the silhouette was used as a hyperlink as well, to connect to www.sherlockholmes.com. This was created with the InDesign Hyperlinks panel.

One other navigational element was included in this PDF and it was done in Acrobat. Note the hand icon as you run the mouse over the text. Clicking it will enlarge the text to fit the window and clicking as you read down will scroll through all the text and pages. This navigation is created with the Article tool. Tools > Advanced Editing > Article Tool. The Article tool was done “by-hand” starting with Chapter One and selecting each column in order throughout the book.

Click Here to download example and tutorial.

PS Word documents can also be converted to PDFs with Bookmarks and Links.

Creating Rollovers for PDFs in InDesign

Clint — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:52:00 GMT

This is a simple way to make your PDFs more engaging. It can be nothing more than an effect as in this example or made into a button to trigger moving to another page or playing an audio/visual file. In this example the sepia tone background, selected from Kuler, kuler.adobe.com/, interacts with the photos to provide a different look.

Click Here to download example and tutorial.

Steps:

▶▶ Build the page in InDesign

▶▶ Select the Interactivity Workspace

▶▶ Select an image

▶▶ Select the Effects (fx) panel and choose the Luminosity Blending Mode
For multiple images you may want to drag the Effects panel out of the panel list

▶▶ Select the Button panel. In the example the sepia toned photo is the normal state so click on Normal

▶▶ In the Effects panel, select the Normal Blending Mode

▶▶ Back to the Button panel, select Rollover

▶▶ Repeat for other rollover effects

▶▶ To add more actions to the button, choose Actions in the Buttons panel. Buttons can be used
to navigate to other pages, views, web links, and files as well as show/hide other buttons and play
movies or audio. Multiple actions can be set for each button.

▶▶ File> Export> Adobe PDF, select Interactive Elements and View PDF after Export to test the effect