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November 4, 2009
Creating a Click-thru Agreement in a PDF
A click-thru (sometimes called ClickWrap) agreement is a software or web-based acceptance of terms.
Click-thru agreements rely on the recipient clicking "OK" or "I agree" to accept the terms of the agreement.
I recently received this email message about Click-thru PDF agreements:
Is it possible to create a message that appears prior to a [PDF] document being opened to accept terms and conditions? If the user would click "Yes" the PDF would open. If the user click "No" the document would close.
Short answer: Yes!
Do Click-thru Agreements have Legal Precedent?
Yes, there are a number legal decisions on the subject.
The earliest reference I found was to ProCD v. Zeidenberg (text), which established that clicking a button in a software program constituted acceptance of terms.
A number of relevant court decisions may be found here: Click-Wrap Agreement - Internet Library of Law and Court Decisions.
In this article, I'll show you how to create an alert message that pops up when a PDF is opened:
October 6, 2009
Converting Color PDF to Greyscale PDF (An Update)
Converting Color PDFs to Grayscale or Black and White in Acrobat 9
It's rare to find color printers or copiers widely deployed in law firms. When color documents appear in discovery, firms don't always know what to do with them. Examples include PPT files, images scanned in full color, etc.
Acrobat files can contain color and non-color elements:
- RGB: Red, Green, Blue color
- CMYK: Cyan, Yellow, Magenta and Black
- Greyscale: Shades of gray ranging from 0 (white) to to 256 (black) in value
- Monochrome: Black and White
RGB or CMYK image-only PDFs, in particular, can be quite large. Converting these PDFs to grayscale or black can reduce the size of the file and speed printing.
Other times, litigation support departments will have to satisfy the odd attorney who prefers to read grayscale documents.
Whatever the reason, it is fairly easy to convert RGB or CMYK PDFs to Greyscale. It's a bit more difficult to convert to monochrome, but I've included a workaround for that, too.
You'll need Acrobat Pro to make this work for you . . .
August 3, 2009
Reducing the File Size of Scanned PDFs
It seems like a lot of folks are struggling with the size of scanned PDFs. Below are excerpts from two emails I received recently:
My [Fujitsu] ScanSnap makes PDFs that are too big . . . like around 60K per page! What can I do to make these smaller in Acrobat?
I have to eFile [with the Federal Court] and am having to split the filings into many segments to go through the [Court] gateway. The issue seems to be with documents that are scanned on our network scanner. PDFs produced directly from Word are a lot smaller. Is there some trick to reduce the size of scanned files?
Before covering how to reduce the size of scanned documents in detail, let's discuss four factors that affect the size of scanned images:
- Scanning Resolution
A scan at 600 dpi results in a much larger file than at 300 dpi. - Color Space
Color and grayscale files result in much larger files than black and white files. - Physical dimensions of the scanned page
A legal-size scan will be larger than a letter-size scan, with all other factors being equal. - Compression
Raw scan data can be compressed to make it smaller.
Compression Types |
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Lossless compression retains the exact appearance of the original. Two common types of lossless compression are ZIP and CCITT Group 4. |
Lossy compression makes some (hopefully) non-noticeable visual trade-offs to further reduce file size. JPEG is a common lossy compression method. |
Ideally, you would control all of the above factors yourself by scanning at 300 dpi, black and white and using an efficient compression algorithm.
Unfortunately, you many not have that option. Many desktop and network scanners offer limited or confusing options— or— the scanned PDFs arrived from outside your firm.
Legal Scanning Recommendations |
For the purpose of this article we will make a couple of assumptions:
- You have a black and white scanned document of unknown dpi and compression
- You have already OCR'd the document, or don't need OCR
Read on to learn how to reduce the file size of scanned documents using Acrobat.
April 6, 2009
Exporting a PDF to Excel
I received this email from a paralegal at a large law firm recently:
Help! An attorney has asked me to convert PDFs we received in discovery to Excel. The PDFs are tabular in nature (probably originated in Excel). Some are scanned in from paper and others appear to be converted electronically. How do I do this?
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.
- Works best when you only need small part of the table
- Better results if the file didn't originate from a spreadsheet - 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.
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.
March 30, 2009
Batch Conversion of Excel to PDF
I recently received the following inquiries below from customers::
I have several hundred Excel files to convert to PDF as part of a case. Is there a way to do this in Acrobat? A lot of the files have multiple worksheets, too. Do I have to convert each worksheet separately?
So Yes and No. Yes, Acrobat can convert multiple Excel files to PDF. And, No, you don't have to convert each worksheet separately!
Converting Multiple Worksheets
Fortunately, Acrobat 9 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.
May 8, 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.
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 4, 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 . . .
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.
October 6, 2007
List PDF Bookmarks with a Free Script
Legal professionals use PDF bookmarks to mark important sections. Each bookmark goes to a different view or page in the document.
Recently, I’ve had several requests from legal customers who want to create a list of all of the bookmarks in their document.
For example:
Good news! Because Acrobat is extensible using JavaScript, you can create a bookmark listing like the one above (for free!) using the steps provided in this article.
The key is to install a tiny JavaScript sequence file which is accessed using the Batch Processing function of Acrobat Professional.
Read on to…
- Download a free, pre-built sequence file
- Install the sequence file
- Create a new PDF which lists the bookmarks in your file
August 24, 2007
How do I open a PDF in Acrobat instead of the browser?
By default, PDF files opened from a web page display inside the browser window with a limited toolbar:
The default behavior does not suit the needs of all legal users. Some eFiling sites require running in the browser, but other applications require opening the PDF directly in Acrobat.
It is easy to change the way that Acrobat opens files from the browser by modifying Preferences.
Read on to learn how to change Preferences.
I'll also tell you about a very useful Firefox extension that let's you choose— on the fly— whether you would like a PDF to open in the browser or in Acrobat.
July 18, 2007
Managing, Annotating and Searching PDF Packages
In my last article Search and Combine using PDF Packages, I discussed how to search a large number of documents and combine the resulting documents into a PDF package.
The result was a PDF package containing a target list of documents for further investigation.
With this “hot” set of documents in hand, it is time to carefully review them. You want to find out:
- Who is mentioned in the documents
- The issue(s) associated with the documents
- When actions took place
Once you have all of this information, what do you think about what you found? How will you make your case?
In this article, you’ll learn how to:
- Add Notes or Annotations to a document in the package
- Add or delete documents in the package
- Search within a package, including your annotations
December 2, 2006
Acrobat 8: New Examine Document Feature
These days, lawyers and their firms often think twice before emailing a file.
Does the document contain hidden information— metadata— that could lead to an accidental disclosure?
Office documents can contain hidden information that could be potentially damaging. Some examples are track change information in Word, comments, Title/Subject/Author keywords and so on. The list is long.
I should mention that the legal market very broadly defines metadata compared to other industries. To keep things simple, we'll define metadata then as anything you can't see in the document that could get you in trouble.
Large firms often use products like Workshare Protect, Payne Metadata Assistant or iScrub to clean Office documents before sending them out. If you must send out raw Office documents, this is a very good practice. Unfortunately, usage of these tools isn't a universal, especially so among solos and smaller firms.
Some firms take a "PDF First" approach, preferring to send out PDFs. Comparatively, PDFs are benign compared to Office formats. Still, PDFs can contain "metadata" that could be an issue. For example, you might type damaging information an an Acrobat sticky note and send the document to opposing counsel.
There have been several instances of improperly redacted PDFs. In one document I examined, the author had used the Borders and Shading option in Word to cover up text and then converted to PDF. The text of course was still in the Word file and was also available when converted to PDF.
A knowledgeable user's document practices normally prevent these kind of problems. However, even experienced users desire failsafe solutions.
Fortunately, Acrobat 8 adds a new feature called Examine Document which eliminates hidden text and other metadata from PDFs. Examine Document is available in both Acrobat 8 Standard and Professional.
Read on more more information about metadata, ways to remove it in a single document, and metadata removal in batch.
January 21, 2006
Converting Color PDFs to Greyscale or Black and White
It's rare to find color printers or copiers widely deployed in law firms. When color documents appear in discovery, firms don't always know what to do with them. Examples include PPT files, images scanned in full color, etc.
Acrobat files can contain color and non-color elements:
- RGB: Red, Green, Blue color
- CMYK: Cyan, Yellow, Magenta and Black
- Greyscale: Shades of gray ranging from 0 (white) to to 256 (black) in value
- Monochrome: Black and White
RGB or CMYK image-only PDFs, in particular, can be quite large. Converting these PDFs to grayscale or black can reduce the size of the file and speed printing.
Other times, litigation support departments will have to satisfy the odd attorney who prefers to read greyscale documents.
Whatever the reason, it is fairly easy to convert RGB or CMYK PDFs to Greyscale. It's a bit more difficult to convert to monochrome, but I've included a workaround for that, too. You'll need Acrobat Pro to make this work for you . . .
January 13, 2006
How do I shrink the page size of a PDF?
How do I shrink a PDF file? Not file size, mind you, but the physical page size.
I hear this question with some regularity!
Some courts have very strict requirements for document margins, print area, and so on. For example, a court or government agency may require that Bates stamps appear 1/2 inch from the bottom margin of the page or that each page must have a one-inch of margin all the way around.
Unfortunately, lawyers and their firms encounter a variety of files that enter litigation or other processes that don't meet these standards. For example, you might receive a drawing- or scan of a drawing- that goes nearly edge to edge. Or, perhaps, you receive a document that is an odd size, say 9" by 12" or something quite a bit smaller than a standard letter-sized page.
You have a challenge. You need to turn these digital files into a PDF and still meet court/agency requirements.
In the old days, you'd throw these on a photocopier, but it doesn't seem very efficient to print and rescan your documents turning them into big images.
What to do?
December 16, 2005
Redacting PDFs
Redaction, by definition, means removing information from documents. In the old days of paper, xacto knives were used to cut text from the paper and it was then photocopied with a black sheet of paper behind it.
As numerous folks have found out, covering up information in an electronic file is not the same as deleting it.
Note: This article was written before Acrobat 8 shipped which includes robust tools for detecting improper redactions (Acrobat 8 Standard and Pro) and full-featured Redaction tools (Acrobat 8 Professional).<\p>