November 24, 2009
Acrobat has long had review tools and many life science companies use them.
However, when I talk to most firms in bio-pharma, I find that they are not always using the tools to best advantage. And, of course, I still see lots of paper-based review workflows.
Acrobat’s Shared Review capability allows multiple people, in real time, to review a document corroboratively. That can help accelerate review and help you meet deadlines.
Below is a screen shot of a product label that is part of a Shared Review.
How does Shared Review Work?
So, you may be wondering . . . how does it work and what benefits does it offer me?
I’ve put together an 11-minute, narrated slide deck to help explain how it works.
I’ve titled it "Enterprise Collaboration with Adobe Acrobat 9". In the presentation, I cover the findings from a recent Forrester Consulting study on collaboration, and then show you how to collaborate better using Acrobat.
Read on to get it.
Continue reading…
September 25, 2009
My colleagues Mark Middleton, Ed Chase and I offered an eSeminar today on collaborative review tools.
The eSeminar featured solutions for ad hoc review using Acrobat and also audited, workflow-based review using the Adobe eSubmissions Solutions Accelerator.
Here, you can view the slides from today’s session.
I’ve stored these on my Acrobat.com account so you can view a Flash preview or download the PDF which includes speaker notes.
Read the rest of the entry to get to the downloadable slides.
Continue reading…
August 11, 2009
Documents submitted to the FDA’s CBER and CDER must comply with the agency’s PDF specifications regarding link appearance.
Both agencies prefer blue text for hyperlinks in PDFs created from electronic source files. For scanned documents, hyperlinks should be a thin blue line.
Electronic Source File
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Scanned File
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If you are creating documents in Microsoft Word, it is best to style the text blue, or edit your styles to include the color, then convert to PDF.
Regulatory professionals often have to work with scanned documents, or PDFs authored outside of their control. For these documents, a post-process is required to bring link appearance into compliancy.
In this article, I’ll discuss how to change link color and style.
Continue reading…
April 8, 2009
I recently received the following inquiries from customers::
Some of my Excel files contain more than one worksheet. I would like to convert the second worksheet in an Excel file to the same PDF.
I have over 1000 Excel documents to convert to PDF as part of a regulatory filing. Is there a way to convert these all to PDF in batch?
I’ll tackle both of these needs in this article.
Converting Multiple Worksheets
Fortunately, Acrobat 8 and later can easily convert all of the worksheets in your Excel files to PDF:
When you use the PDF Maker in Acrobat 9, you have some additional options to select just the worksheets needed:
A) Choose options to convert all worksheets, the currently selected worksheet or a subset of the worksheets.
B) To choose some worksheets, but not others, select from the list on the left and use the Add or Remove buttons to move them to the list on the right.
C) Click the Convert to PDF button to complete the process
The result is a nicely bookmarked PDF that looks like this:
What about batch conversion?
If you want to convert many Excel documents in batch to PDF, there are a few additional tricks involved. Read on learn how in the rest of the article.
Continue reading…
March 30, 2009
The pharmaceutical industry uses a lot of data. Consequently, we see a lot of tabular data converted to PDF documents. It is common to see lab instrument data, database reports and enterprise systems data output as PDF.
So, there you are, alone in your office staring at a PDF document wishing you had access to the original data. What do you do?
Fortunately, Acrobat 9.1 offers a couple of different ways to export to Excel.
- Select table and open in Excel
This allows you to select a portion of a page and open it in Excel.
- Export as Tables in Excel
This method uses some artificial intelligence to convert multiple page PDF documents to multiple worksheets in an XML-based spreadsheet file. It works best on files which were converted directly from Excel to PDF.
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To open the XML-based file output generated using method 2 above, you’ll need either:
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Acrobat generally will usually do a pretty good job converting the text, but formatting and column widths will look different than the original. Acrobat only copies over the text. Formulas will not convert. Do not expect 100% fidelity.
In the full article, you’ll receive my usual step-by-step instructions.
Continue reading…
March 25, 2009
Adobe recently released security updates to Acrobat and Adobe Reader 7, 8 and 9.
Large Life Science corporations centrally distribute software to users, most often on the Windows platform.
In this article, I’ll discuss the tools and techniques that are available to help IT personnel deploy and update versions of Acrobat 7, 8 and 9, including the free Adobe Reader.
First, I’ll show you where you can download the apps and our tools for deployment. In the full article, I’ll discuss how to “chain” installs, expand Adobe Reader, and use the Adobe Customization Wizard to streamline installation.
Get the Updates and the Deployment Tools
Various updates are available depending on the version of Acrobat and/or Reader you have installed. To make it easier to customize Acrobat, Adobe offers installation tools which help you remove earlier versions of Acrobat, serialize the product, and set a wide variety of program options.
The links below are for Windows versions. Mac Acrobat users can find updates here.
Adobe generally does not issue complete, new packages for dot releases, so it’s important to properly “chain” these installs. I’ll also discuss how to expand the Adobe Reader to make it installable, and discuss the Acrobat Customization Wizard and other resources available. Read on for this information.
NOTE: If you receive my blog via email, make sure you click on the article title to read it on my blog.
Continue reading…
February 17, 2009
Today, my colleagues Mark Middleton, Ed Chase and I conducted a joint eSeminar with the SAFE Bio-Pharma Association called:
Using SAFE- BioPharma Digital Signatures in Adobe Acrobat 9
I’ll post a link to the recording soon.
I’ve included three downloads that you might find useful:
- Adobe Acrobat Slides
Go over the digital signing process in Acrobat
- SAFE Slides
Covers the business benefits of using SAFE signatures
- Adobe LiveCycle eSubmissions Solutions Accelerator
Slides on Adobe’s server-based review and approval systems which can be part of an audited, CFR-Part 11 workflow
- Digital Signatures Cheat Sheet
Helps you understand the various status messages associated with digital signatures
Read on to get the good stuff.
Continue reading…
February 10, 2009
If you attended my eSeminar "
Regulatory Compliant PDFs and Beyond
" and are looking for a copy of the slides and other materials, you’re in the right place.
One point I try to get across about Acrobat is that it can be used for far more than just creating a PDF as part of an electronic submission.
Acrobat is terrific as a general tool for any knowledge worker. Need to capture information from a web site? Scan in paper documents? Combine files into something well-organized to send out?
Yes, yes, yes.
Click on the Continue Reading link below to access two documents:
- Slides from the events
- Comparison of Acrobat features from version 7, 8 and 9
Enjoy!
Continue reading…
January 27, 2009
Did you attend the
following eSeminar?
PDF Document Review eSeminar:
Ad Hoc or Audited Options for Life Sciences
I’ve posted two sets of slides. The first set covers Shared Review in Acrobat. The second set covers the LiveCycle eSubmissions Solution Accelerator.
To recap, the seminar covered:
Adobe experts will show you how to encourage active participation by your employees and accelerate the document review process. Whether you need informal document review or an audited CFR-Part 11 compliant review process, Adobe offers solutions which leverage the Adobe Acrobat product family, including the free Adobe Reader.
Attend this free seminar and you will:
- Learn how to enable ad hoc review workflows using Adobe Acrobat and the free Adobe Reader
- Discover how Adobe LiveCycle server solutions can create, route and manage audited review processes
- See how multiple users, in real time, can add notes and comments to PDF documents
- Discover how to create custom stamps and other annotations
- Find out how to use network folders or Microsoft SharePoint to host ad hoc reviews
Click onward to download the slides . . .
Continue reading…
January 22, 2009
One requirement for scanned PDFs submitted to most regulatory agencies is that the files are searchable. To make scanned PDFs text searchable, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is used.
In a previous article on Batch OCR, I discussed using Acrobat Pro to create a Batch Sequence to process multiple files.
In Acrobat 9 Standard and Pro, there is now an easy way to OCR multiple files using a new feature— Recognize Text in Multiple Files using OCR:
Read on to learn how to use this new feature.
Continue reading…
