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The views expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Adobe Systems Incorporated.
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JohnG on "30 Dirty Tricks: Attendee Materials"
I was looking for some information regarding PowerPoint conversions and the "Better PowerPoint Conversion" trick did the job! Thanks for the article. I wish for more like these!
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John on "Troubleshooting Acrobat OCR"
For the "renderable text" problem, I just now tried the remove header/footer trick but there were no headers or footers. There was, however, a date in the upper corner of the doc so I just used the object touch-up tool ...
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Jim on "Troubleshooting Acrobat OCR"
When scanning a large doc our person gets the following message when finishing a large scan "Unable to process the page because the Paper Capture feature recognition service experienced an error" They are using Acrobat 7 Standard. Any suggestions? -------- ...
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James W. Martin on "Understanding "Flavors" of PDF"
When I open a PDF in Acrobat 7 Pro and direct it to Reduce file size, it always crashes Windows. I have HotDocs installed and wonder if there is a problem having both HotDocs and Acrobat Pro installed on the ...
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Gary S. Craw on "The Typewriter Tool (semi-new!)"
Rick: I started using the typewriter tool and find its great! But one day when I tried to use it I found that the text inserted by the Typewriter was a very pale grey - and not the default black. ...
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Greta on "Troubleshooting Acrobat OCR"
Thanks for this info - very helpful with my awful assignment. I think removing headers/footers is easier than the TIf option. Still, it's possible that in some case, if the text policy is poor, then you would be able to ...
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May 08, 2008
Extracting Non-Sequential Pages- Another Method
In my last entry, I discussed one method to Extract a Non-Sequential Range of Pages from a PDF.
One of my bosses always told us that our customers are smarter than we are.
I was reminded of this recently when I received this note from James Strupp of the Federal Office of the Public Defender:
A far easier and more direct way to do this, in my view, is to create a new PDF from "multiple files", even if you are just extracting pages from one file.
Doh! That's a great idea! Jame even sent along his detailed instructions. I've added some screen captures and additional detail of my own.
Read on to learn about this alternate method to extract pages.
April 20, 2008
Extracting Non-sequential Pages from PDFs
I received this email recently from a paralegal:
My colleague and I have been trying to extract non-sequential pages from a document to create a new document. It appears in the current version of Acrobat Professional (8.1.2) that only sequential documents can be extracted. Is there a work around for this? As an example, in a 100 page document we want to extract pages 12, 43 and 97 only. The ‘extract pages’ option (Document—>Extract Pages) indicates it will extract pages 12-97 which is way more pages than we need.
Yes, it's true that you cannot select and extract a discontinuous range of pages using the Extract Pages option and the Pages Panel.
However, you can drag and drop a non-sequential bunch of pages between two PDFs using the Pages Panel:
Read on for instructions and screen shots. Are you a really visual person? I've also included a movie that shows you how!
April 15, 2008
Creating a Non-Searchable PDF from Office Documents
Every once in a while, I receive an email that has me scratching my head a bit, such as this one:
When you PDF a document that you generate in MS Word, is there a way to produce an "image-only" PDF, with non-searchable text? The only way I know how is to print out and scan the document back into Acrobat.
Why would someone want to take a perfectly good, fully-searchable document and turn it into an image-only PDF which is just a picture of the page in a PDF wrapper?
The answer is that in the course of vigorously defending a client, some firms desire to make using documents as difficult as possible for the other side.
Of the various PDF flavors , an image-only PDF is . . .
- 3 to 5 times larger in file size
- Look worse on screen
- Print slower
- Not searchable
"Dumbing down" a PDF to an image probably doesn't cripple the other side very much. Using OCR, the other side can quickly make the document searchable.
It is not without some trepidition that I share this tip. After all, compact, searchable PDF should be what we all aspire to create.
However, since I suspect that many firms are printing out documents and rescanning them, I want to offer a greener alternative.
It's not for me to comment on whether this is fair game or not as you work with the other side, but following is a workaround that will create an image-only, non-searchable PDF from an existing PDF document.
April 08, 2008
Adobe Legal Forum coming to LA, Sacramento, NYC, Chicago
My colleague Mark Middleton and I will be presenting our 3-hour Adobe Legal Forum presentation in several cities.
All sessions are free to attend and include a buffet breakfast!
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April 15, 2008 Marriott Los Angeles  |
April 16, 2008
The Vizcaya Hotel |
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April 24, 2008
Intercontinental Chicago |
April 29, 2008
Adobe NY Office |
Registration starts at 9:00 a.m. Seminar starts at 9:30 a.m. Seminar ends at 12:30 p.m. |
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Don't miss events in your city! |
Adobe conducts many legal seminars around the US and Canada. Click here to be notified when we're in your your town. |
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Read on for a full description of these events.
March 01, 2008
PDF Packages for Case Analysis: Cover Sheet Bookmarks
Legal professionals are starting to use PDF Packages increasingly for Case Analysis, and that led to this email which I received from a paralegal recently:
Is it possible to add a bookmark that can point to any place in any document in a PDF package? We use bookmarks extensively in our large document files (one of the reasons I liked the print bookmark workaround you came up with), which makes it easier to navigate a lot of information.
The short is answer is Yes!
In this article, I'll discuss how you can create links from the PDF Package Cover Sheet to any document in the package.
This technique offers you a central place where you are a click away from any important passage in any document in the package.
Using this technique, you can quickly get to the document locations which describe the key characters, issues and facts in your case.
Relevant Articles: A Read Me First This is the fourth in a series of Case Analysis articles on the use of PDF Packages. Read these other articles first for background. |
February 15, 2008
Using PDF Packages Header Fields for Case Analysis
Roughly defined, case analysis is the process of looking at the documents in your case and making decisions about them.
I've written previously regarding how . . .
- Acrobat can help you winnow down the large number of documents in a case using full-text search.
- An essential list of documents may be further managed and annotated in a PDF package.
In this article, I'll discuss ways in which you can code and capture your thinking about your case in a PDF Package.
Specifically, you'll learn:
- How to create custom Header Fields
- How to fill in and use PDF Header fields to code documents, like a spreadsheet
January 31, 2008
Ensuring the PDF Comments Get Printed
Attorneys and other legal professionals use Acrobat comments and annotations to stamp their signature on documents, add highlights, circle important passages, etc.
I recently received this email message from an attorney:
I use the Stamp tool to affix a graphic of my signature to pleadings before e-filing them or sharing them with other counsel. But recipients who fail to choose to print with "Document and Markups" produce a doc that lacks my signature. So, I've taken to flattening them by printing to my PDF driver, but that produces a doc of embarassingly poor quality.
Some Background
Acrobat offers the ability to print documents with or without comments. If you choose File—>Print, you will see the following option:
If you had a heavily commented document with lots of highlights, you may wish to print a clean copy by choosing the "Document" option.
Once you select an option here, the setting is sticky for the next time you print from Acrobat.
Unfortunately, signature stamps are also a type of annotation. If your client or colleague has recently chosen the "Document" option, the important agreement you worked on won't have your signature.
Fortunately, there are some good workarounds:
- Flatten the document so that Stamps and Annotations become part of the document layer
- Embed your signature as an image, rather than a stamp
- Add a special "Print with Comments" button to your document.
In this article, I'll discuss these three workarounds. Read on to learn about them.
January 29, 2008
What's going to be in the next version of Acrobat?
Many legal users, especially those that look after technology for larger firms, have a real interest in planning ahead for new technology purchases.
Since PDF has become the de facto eFiling format and a paper replacement, use of Adobe Acrobat is nearly ubiquitous across law firms.
It is advantageous to know as much as you can about new software that will arrive in the months ahead. With that knowledge, you can plan your budget, anticipate training needs and investigate how the new product will fit into your existing infrastructure.
What new features will be in the next version of Acrobat?
I can't tell you here, but you may be able to find out yourself by signing up for Adobe's Pre-release Program.
Read on for more information about Adobe's Pre-release Program.
December 18, 2007
Materials for Today's Communication Challenges
Although I focus mainly on two markets (Legal and Life Science), I was recently asked to conduct one of Adobe's horizontal events which are not specific to any vertical market.
The eSeminar was Today's Communication Challenges. In this eSeminar, my colleague Jim Merry and I offered a high-level overview and demonstration of what Acrobat can do for Knowledge Workers.
Knowledge Workers work in many disciplines, but have several common tasks that they need to accomplish:
- Document Preparation Presentation, and Sharing
- Protecting Sensitive Information
- Electronic Forms and Data Collection
- Electronic Document Review & Approval
The slides include many helpful resources including links to tutorials, books and more.
Read on to get to the download materials.
December 16, 2007
Adding a Thumbnail of a PDF Page to a PowerPoint Presentation
PowerPoint is a tool that attorneys use to present their arguments in mediation or the courtroom.
Since documents are a key aspect of the argument, presentations may need to include large thumbnails of key pages from the case— often from PDF files.
Several methods may be used to take turn a PDF page into an image which can then be placed into PowerPoint or other applications:
- Export the PDF as a TIFF, JPEG or other image format
- Use a screen shot utility to "grab" a portion of the screen.
- Print the PDF to a TIFF file
- Use the PDF as an OLE object
I find that the methods above are multi-step and cumbersome.
In this article, I'll show you how the Snapshot Tool can place a page thumbnail into PowerPoint in one simple step!
Read on to learn how to use the Snapshot Tool.
December 10, 2007
Cleaning up Scanned Images
I recently received this message from a legal technology consultant:
I have had several clients (and have wondered myself) why there’s no way to delete something from a PDF. For example, if I scan a document and want to delete the black marks made by the staple holes in the top left corner, I can’t do that without cropping the entire image. What is the reasoning for not including a feature that would allow me to draw a box around those staple holes and delete them from the image?
Actually, Adobe did include a feature to clean up scanned images!
You can easily clean up scanned images using the Redaction tool:
Normally, redactions appear as a black box which obscures the underlying document. Did you know that Acrobat can redact to "No Color" as well?
In this article, I'll offer step-by-step instructions for cleaning up scanned PDFs using the Redaction tool in Acrobat 8 Professional.
Using this workflow, you can easily delete staple marks, hole punches, shadows, dirt and more from PDFs.
December 07, 2007
Mark Middleton's Legal Links List
Mark Middleton— Adobe's Legal Account Specialist— maintains a list of legal-related links for Adobe Acrobat.
This "cherry picked" list has some great resources which you should check out.
Go to Mark's Legal Link List
You can also read on for a description of the list and a picture of my esteemed colleague!
December 04, 2007
Highlighting Multiple Words in a PDF Document
Acrobat has powerful search capabilities, but one feature which is lacking is persistent highlighting via search. I discovered an interesting workaround to this problem after pondering this email message from a customer:We have a fairly large case where I pulled up 7,000 pages of shift logs. I need to find select words throughout the document so I am using the word search to go through all the pages and pull out those pages that reference the word I am searching. I have some questions for you:
1) When the word search is done and I am looking at the document, all the words that I searched are highlighted in blue. However, when I print them off they are not highlighted anymore. Is there anyway to make it so those words are highlighted and will stay highlighted when I print them off and are easy to spot?
2) One of the words we are needing to search for our discovery produced over 3,000 pages. Obviously I really do not want to print off all of those pages. Is there anyway to print off a summary of where that word is on each page without printing off all 3,000 pages?
I scratched my head for a bit, but I found a great workaround which takes advantage of Acrobat 8's Redaction feature. The end result is a persistently highlighted document like this:
Read on to learn about the workaround in easy step-by-step instructions.
November 20, 2007
PDF Creation and Font Embedding for USPTO Submissions
Law firms that file the United States Patent and Trademarks Office (USPTO) need to heed the agency’s specific requirements for PDF generation.
The USPTO PDF specification does not allow PDFs to contain:
- Images (including entire scanned pages) above 300 DPI resolution
- Security of any kind
- Embedded multimedia (e.g. sounds or movies)
- Hyperlinks
- Layers
TIP: The PDF Optimizer in Acrobat 8 Professional can ensure compliance with these restrictions. Images may be downsampled, layers flattened and security, links and multimedia elements removed. The PDF Optimizer may be accessed using the Batch Processing facility, too! |
Many federal agencies have long relied upon PDF because of Acrobat’s ability to faithfully render all aspects of printed pages including layout, tables, images and fonts (typefaces).
The USPTO requires that PDF must be:
- Acrobat 4 (PDF 1.3) or higher
(See note at end of article)
- No larger than 8.5” by 11” or A4 page size
- Have all fonts embedded and subset
The last item—fonts—is a critical aspect of displaying documents.
Acrobat offers three font choices that balance file size versus view fidelity:
- Fonts Substitution
Acrobat renders—on the fly—a “faux font” representation using typeface information included in the PDF. - Fonts Embedding
All typefaces necessary to render a font are embedded in the file. - Fonts Subsetting
Only the typeface characters necessary to render the file are embedded. Typefaces may have thousands of characters. Only embedding the actual characters used can reduce file size.
While Font Substitution keeps file sizes small, it can be problematic for submissions as non-standard fonts and specialized math symbols may not render faithfully for reviewers.
Font Embedding places a copy of the entire typeface in the PDF document.
Font Subsetting balances file size and faithful display because it renders all the characters in a document accurately while keeping file size to a minimum.
Unfortunately, the “Standard” conversion setting in Acrobat does not embed the most common office fonts. These fonts such as Arial and Times Roman are normally installed as part of the operating system.
A recommended best practice is to create a new PDF Conversion setting and employ it for creating all PDFs when filing with the USPTO.
Read on to learn how . . .
November 03, 2007
Acrobat Properties Bar for Quick Access to Text Color Highlights
I recently received an email about using the Text Highlighter tool in Acrobat:
I enjoy your articles on using Adobe. One item I use very often is the Text Highlighter tool. I mark text in different colors depending on the substance of the text itself. To do so, I mark the text in question and then open the Properties Box and then select the color I need.
This can be very time consuming as I am constantly switching back and forth on the colors. I was wondering, is there is a faster way to select a different color?Mark E. Schell
Senior Vice President and General Counsel
Unit Corporation
At first I was stumped, but then I remembered the solution!
The Properties Bar in Acrobat which offers quick access to many tool options.
Read on to learn about using the Properties Bar to quickly change text highlight colors.
October 12, 2007
Change PDF Versions using Acrobat
Courts and other regulatory agencies typically require firms which eFile to provide a specific version of PDF—most often PDF 1.4, the Acrobat 5 format.
Other times, you may need to change the version of a PDF you have to ensure compatibility with a client or colleague using an older version of Adobe Acrobat.
In this article, I’ll cover the following:
- How to check the version of a PDF document
- How to change the PDF version
I’ll also cover some other related topics about changing PDF version. Read on to learn more.