Sign up for one of our free 1-hour eSeminars where I'll show off the latest legal-specific features of Adobe Acrobat 9.

Day	Date	Time	Register
Thursday	July 10	10AM Pacific	All Firm Event
Wednesday	July 16	10AM Pacific	Large Firm Event
Wednesday	July 16	Noon Pacific	Small Firm Event

We'll kick off with a presentation which will help you understand which version of Acrobat is right for you. After that, it's full-on demo!

You'll need a fast internet connection to take part in these events.

Read on for a complete agenda and more details about these events.

During the Acrobat 9 eSeminar you will . . .

• Find out which features are in which version of Acrobat
• Learn how to create a PDF Portfolio for a Closing Binder
• Discover the new and powerful Document Comparison tool to help you spot changes fast
• See how to accelerate Redaction workflows with pattern-based search
• Split documents for electronic filing workflows
• See new, easier-to-user forms creation and data collection tools
• Use enhanced Bates Numbering to help you manage your case
• Take advantage of new ClearScan OCR
• Export PDFs for re-editing in a word processing program

What's the difference between the Seminars?

The eSeminars are all substantially similar, so you could attend any of them and learn a lot.

That said, our small firm event will focus a bit more on Acrobat.com, our free service for sharing documents, collaborating on documents, and web conferencing. Some examples we show will be more small-firm focused.

Our large firm event will speak more to the needs of large firms and their specific IT needs.

What Do I Need to Participate?

Our online events are broadcast using our own technology— Acrobat Connect Pro using Adobe Flash technology.

Most likely, you won't need to download anything at all.

You can listen through your computer speakers via Voice-Over IP. If you prefer, audio is also available via telephone. You'll get all the details when you register.

You need your Adobe.com membership login and password. If you need to create a membership, or do not remember your login and password, please go to the Adobe.com membership page.

Acrobat 9 was announced today! The new version will ship sometime in the next month or so. Here's a link to the Acrobat 9 Press Release.

Acrobat 9 includes many new features of interest to legal professionals!

• Enhanced Redaction and Bates Numbering
• File splitting
• Better Save to Word with flowing text
• PDF Portfolios (Packages on steroids!)
• More powerful Document Comparison

You can check out demo movies I've made of the major new features . . . read on to learn more.

One thing that blew me away is that Acrobat 9 is F-A-S-T! It launches in one-third the time of previous versions and generally feels a lot snappier in use.

All versions of Acrobat can now play Flash content natively. You can embed Flash movies (SWF and FLV) files and play them right in Acrobat. That means you can embed deposition and audio interviews and know that the recipient can play them with confidence.

Adobe is also be launching a new service called Acrobat.com.

Acrobat.com is a collection of free hosted services that you can use to work with people inside and outside your organization,
across geographies and firewalls.

Acrobat 9 users can work with Acrobat.com as a central location for certain document processes such as Shared Review, Form Data Collection and more.

Acrobat.com also offers two amazing, free features:

• 5GB of hosted storage
• Free 3-person web conferencing so you can share your screen, show documents, present and even show your face on your webcam

See and learn about all the new stuff! Read on . . .

	Click the icon to play a movie in a new window.	High-speed connection required.
Document Comparison Enhanced a lot!	It's been completely re-written, so I could call it a new feature! Compare all changes in documents including text, images, moved pages, etc. Summarize changes as annotations to documents Find differences in pictures Choose what you want to compare— or ignore— including images, headers and footers, etc.
PDF Portfolios New Feature May need to resize window	These are PDF Packages on Steroids! Look professional using nicely designed layouts which can play Flash movies Organize files in folders Built-in preview of Word, Excel, and other Office files Search non-PDF documents in a package Sort by date, number or text Rename files Direct editing of header fields
Redaction Enhanced	Redact using Patterns to find Social Security Numbers, Emails, and more. Redact using Word Lists Redact entire pages Apply Redactions in batch Automatically rename files with a suffix of your choosing (_redacted)
Bates Numbering Enhanced	Easily select entire folders for numbering Set an output folder so your originals stay untouched Rename files on output with a prefix or suffix Rename files to Bate range e.g. 000001-000039.pdf
File Splitting New Feature	Split files by File Size Number of Pages Top-level Bookmarks Rename files with prefix and suffix Split multiple files
Forms Enhanced a lot!	Acrobat 9 Standard can now create and Reader-enable forms Automatically find form fields on scanned documents Easier form authoring which allows you to "Stamp" form fields on documents Collect form data on Acrobat.com, SharePoint or a network folder
OCR Enhanced!	New ClearScan OCR makes paper documents more readable OCR multiple documents Improved speed
Save to Word Enhanced!	Save documents with flowing text Retain most formatting for easier editing Export multiple PDFs to Word or other formats using Export Multiple feature
Send and Collaborate Live New Feature May need to resize window	Turn pages and set views in PDFs live for recipients of your PDF Chat live during a session Save the Chat history Combine this feature with Shared Reviews
Web Capture Enhanced May need to resize window	Faster and more accurate capture of web pages Captures complicated sites including Flash movies and other media Select just what you need in Internet Explorer for conversion Easily add more pages from the original site by appending them to the document
Email Archiving Enhanced	Archive email to a PDF Portfolio from Outlook and Lotus Notes Collect more email metadata for "on a budget" EDD Sort and filter results using a PDF Portfolio Search non-PDF attachments such as Word and Excel files
Typewriter Tool Enhanced	Set Typeface font Set color of text Set size of text Enable the Typewriter tool for Adobe Reader users (Pro only)
Scan to PDF Enhanced	Save time using Scan presets for typical document types such as B&W, Grayscale and Color Control your scanner directly

While PDF is superior in many ways, TIFF remains a popular format for use in large case litigation support systems such as Concordance and Summation.

If you have a lot of PDFs in your production it can be a challenge to work with these systems as they do not robustly support PDF and conversion is necessary. These systems want to ingest a . . .

• TIFF file to represent each individual document page
• TEXT file of the text of each page

Processing several hundred documents to individual TEXT and TIFF files is a candidate for some serious automation!

Fortunately, repetitive tasks like this can be easily accomplished using Acrobat Professional. Since Acrobat can be automated using JavaScript, it is possible to string together several steps and save a lot of time.

In this article, I've included a Tiff-Text Processing Batch Script to download which handles all of this conversion automatically. Here are the results:

The TIFF-TEXT Processing script performs the following steps:

1. Tags the file for accessibility and text reflow.
   This should make the text files easier to review in litigation support products.
2. Splits the PDF into individual PDFs by page
3. Exports the individual PDFs as TIFF
4. Exports the individual PDFs as Text files

Have you OCRd your files first? Acrobat can't export text if the file hasn't been OCRd first. Check out this article on Batch OCR .

 

What's Covered . . .

• Installing the script
• Setting related Acrobat Preferences
• Tweaking the Script
• Running the Script
• Troubleshooting
  

Download the Sequence File

Below is a PDF file containing the sequence file. Select the file in the Attachments panel of the PDF and click the Save button to extract it. .

Installation_instructions (52K) (Opens in a new window)

Installing the Sequence File for Acrobat 8

The instructions below have been tested with Acrobat 8.

The above obligatory warning aside, it seems to work.

1. Quit Acrobat if it is open.
2. Extract the sequence file contained in the Installation_instructions PDF to your desktop or other location you can find easily.
   The sequence file is called Tiff-Text Processor.sequ
3. Select the Tiff-Text Processor.sequ file, right-click and choose Copy to place the file on the clipboard
4. Place the file in the following location:
   
   WINDOWS
   C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application  Data\Adobe\Acrobat\8.0\Sequences
   
   MAC OSX PPC
   /Users/<username>/Library/Acrobat User Data/8.0_ppc/Sequences
   
   MAC OSX INTEL
   /Users/<username>/Library/Acrobat User Data/8.0_x86/Sequences
   
5. Restart Acrobat

Set TIFF Conversion Preferences

The majority of case documents may be represented well as B&W TIFFS at 300 dpi resolution. Acrobat's default preference, however, is to make an intelligent conversion of the document which could result in the creation of grayscale or color TIFFs . . . these can be really large!

Let's make some changes:

1. Choose Edit—>Preferences . . .
   (Acrobat—>Preferences . . . on the Mac)
2. In the Preferences window
   A) Choose Convert from PDF
   B) Choose TIFF
   C) Click the Edit Settings button
   
   
3. Make the following changes in the Settings Window:
   A) Change Colorspace to Monochrome
   B) Change Resolution to 300/pixels/inch
   Click OK
   
   
4. Set Batch Conversion Preferences.
   A) Click on the Batch Processing category (far left)
   B) Enable "Save warnings and errors in log file"
   Click OK
   
   
   

   Sometimes a file may not convert properly. You can view a log file created by Acrobat to help with troubleshooting.

Destination Locations

One thing you should know about the script— the destination folder is hard wired.

If you run the script sample as-is, it will prompt you to find the PDFs to process and then write individual PDFs, TIFFs and Text files into a folder at C:\dest.

Windows:
At the very least, you will need to create the "dest" folder at the root level of your C drive to use the script.

Mac:
On my Mac, I was surprised that Acrobat actually created a folder at /C/dest.

Still, you probably will want to have more control about where the files will go. See below.

Changing the Destination Location

To change the place where files will be written:

1. Advanced—>Document Processing—>Batch Processing . . .
   A) Scroll down to find the Tiff-Text Processor sequence
   B) Click Edit Sequence . . .
   
   
   
2. Click the Select Commands . . . button in the Edit Batch Sequence window
   
   
3. In the Edit Sequence window:
   A) Choose Execute JavaScript from the list on the right and
   B) Click the Edit button.
   
   
4. In the JavaScript editor window, scroll down to find the line:
   
   var destPath = "c/dest/"
   
   
   

   What's in a path? /c/dest/ represents the drive letter and path. If you want to put the transformed files files into a path on your desktop, you might change that portion to: Windows /c/Documents and Settings/USERNAME/Desktop/FOLDERNAME Macintosh /Users//USERNAME/Desktop/FOLDERNAME

   
   

Source File Location

It isn't always convenient to have to select the file(s) for conversion, especially if your document production spans several nested folders.

To process a folder and all subfolders within:

1. Advanced—>Document Processing—>Batch Processing . . .
   A) Scroll down to find the Tiff-Text Processor sequence
   B) Click Edit Sequence . . .
   
   
2. In the Edit Batch Sequence window, change the following:
   A) Change Run commands on to "Selected Folder"
   B) Click the Browse button and locate your source folder.
   Click OK.
   
   
   

   Warning! Do not change the Output location via the window above or the script will not work. Leave this as "Ask When Sequence is Run".

Running the Sequence

This part is easy!

1. Advanced—>Document Processing—>Batch Processing . . .
   A) Scroll down to find the Tiff-Text Processor sequence
   B) Click the Run Sequence button
   
   
   
2. Acrobat will prompt you to select files if you did not change the Source File location.
3. Acrobat will display the Run Confirmation window.
   You can turn this off in Preferences (Batch Processing category).
   
   
4. Acrobat will process the files. This could take a while!
5. Open your destination folder to view the results:
   

Troubleshooting

The script is not perfect. I have found that it does not work properly in the following cases:

• If no text is created from a file, ensure that it has been OCRd.
• You might receive messages that files could not be tagged or were already tagged. Generally, you can ignore these.
• Not all PDF forms can be saved as TIFF. You might need to flatten them first using the PDF Optimizer
• Corrupted PDFs may cause a crash

I need to convert Word, Excel, etc. to PDF

You can use Batch Processing to convert any type of file supported by Acrobat to PDF. You would need to conduct this operation as a separate batch sequence before running the TIFF-Text Processor script. Regrettably, Acrobat doesn't allow you to chain together PDF Creation and secondary processing.

How do I learn more about scripting?

Acrobat Developer Center

AcrobatUsers.Com Javascript Corner

Thank you, Leonard! Thanks to Leonard Rosenthol, Adobe's Technical Standards Evangelist, for his help in developing this script. I don't know anybody who knows more about the technical intricacies of PDF than Leonard!

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.

For those of you who didn't see my previous article, Acrobat does not offer a way to extract a non-sequential range of pages from the Pages Panel. I presented a workaround which required dragging and dropping to a new PDF.

James Strupp's elegant solution works perfectly if you review your document(s) first and write down the pages you wish to extract. Since this method makes use of the Create function, you could extract pages from several PDFs and then create a new PDF.

Extracting a Non-Sequential Range of Pages from a PDF using the Combine Feature

1. Review the PDF(s) from which you want to extract pages and note down the pages you wish to extract.
2. Choose File —>Create PDF—> From Multiple files.
   Or click on the Create PDF button and choose From Multiple Files
   
   
   
   

   Note: You could also use the Combine Files option. For this application, they are functionally equivalent.

3. The Create PDF window opens:
   
   
   
4. Locate the file (or files) that you want to extract pages from. Click the Add Files button.
   
   
5. Select the file from which you want to extract the pages in the list. Click the Choose Pages button (or right-click on the file and pick Choose Pages).
   
   
6. The Preview and Select Page Range window opens:
   
   
   Here you can enter individual page numbers, page ranges, or both,each separated by commas, in any sequential order you choose. 
   
   Click the "pages" radio button, and enter your pages or ranges in the following field.
   
   Example: 3, 5, 1, 8, 10, 12-21.
   
   Repeat for all documents in the list.
   
   Click OK.
   
   
7. Click Next. 
8. The Combine Files window opens:
   
   
   Choose Merge into single PDF.  Click Create. 
   
9. The files are combined:
   
   Click the Save button.
   

That's it!

Combining Non-Sequential Files from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. to PDF

Acrobat allows you to select and preview pages from non-PDF files and convert them to PDF in the same process. This can come in really handy for creating closing binders.

For example, let's say you have a 30-page contract. You want to combine the first 29 pages from the original Word file with the signatory page from the PDF that was returned.

Follow Steps 1-3 above. When you get to Step 4, select All Files in the Add files window:

Making this change allows you to select non-PDF documents.

If you are using Office 2003 or greater on Windows (sorry Mac users), you can even preview and select pages from non-PDF documents including Word, Excel and PowerPoint:

For example, in the Word file above, I chose pages 1-29 of the contract. Acrobat will then convert just the first 29 pages of the document.

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!

For this workaround, you will use drag and drop capability to move pages between documents.

If you create and save an empty "target document" you can open it as needed as a target for the pages you wish to copy..

Here's what to do:

1. Create a new PDF document as a target for the extracted pages. You can do this via File—>Create PDF—>From Blank Page or simply create a blank page in your word processor and convert it to PDF.
2. Save the new PDF to a location you'll remember. D not close the document.
   
   

   Tip: For quick and easy access to your target document whenever you need it, choose File—>Organizer—>Add to a Collection. Create a new Collection and click OK. To quickly recall the document, choose File—>Organizer and choose the Collection and document you saved.

   
   
3. Open the Source PDF from which you will extract pages
4. Choose Window—>Tile Vertically. This will tile the two document side by side on your monitor.
   
   
5. Open the Pages panel in each document by clicking on the Pages panel icon in the panel to the left side of each document.
   
   
6. The Pages Panel should now be open in both documents on your screen.
   
   
   
7. Select the pages you wish to copy from the Source Document to the Target Document. Hold down the Control key (Option key on the Mac) to select a discontinuous range of pages.
   
   
   
8. Drag the selected pages from the Pages Panel of the Source document to Pages Panel of the Target document
   
   
9. Close the Source document
10. In the Pages Panel of the Target document, select the first page. Hit the Delete key. Click OK to the Delete Pages warning box.
    
    
11. Choose File—>Save As to save your Target document under a new name.

Pages Panel Tricks

To delete a discontinuous range of pages from a document, simply select the pages needed and hit the Delete key.

Many folks don't know that you can enlarge the Pages Panel and use it as a page sorter. This function is really handy for sorting slides.

Just drag the divider between the Pages Panel and document pane:

Then, your screen will look something like this:

The Pages Panel has an Options menu from which you can access a variety of functions:

For example, you can reduce or enlarge the size of the Page Thumbnail images in the Pages Panel.

Smaller Thumbnail	Larger Thumbnail

One Last Tip

Contextual Menus are available within the Pages Panel. Just click on a page or range of pages and Right-click (Option-click on the Mac):

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.

non-searchable PDF,locked down PDF,crippled PDF

1. Open the PDF you wish to cripple
2. Choose File—>Print
3. In the Print window, Choose AdobePDF from the printer list at the top of the window
   
4. Click the Advanced button at the bottom of the window
   
5. In the Advanced Print Setup window, make the following changes:
   
   A) Enabled the "Print as Image" checkbox
   
   B) Choose the dpi for the new PDF. The pre-populated values are 72, 150, 300, 600, etc. I would suggest going no lower than 200 dpi or on-screen image quality degrades severely.
   
   C) Click the Save As button and name your new Advanced Print Setting
   
6. Click the OK button to go back to the Print Window
   
7. Click the OK button. Acrobat will ask you to name the new "crippled" file. Save in the location of your choice.

Final Thoughts

A likely follow-on question is "How can I take lots of good searchable PDFs and cripple them so I can really stick it to the other side?"

Here's how:

You can automate the process by combining all of your PDFs into a PDF package and choose File—>Print All and following the steps above.

In order to avoid having to name each file during the process, follow these steps:

1. In Acrobat 8, combine all documents into a PDF Package
2. Choose File—>Print All Documents
3. Choose AdobePDF from the printer list and click the Properties button
   
4. Change the setting for the Adobe PDF Output Folder by clicking the Browse button and choosing a folder of your choice.
   

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.

PDF Case Analysis,Acrobat Case Analysis

As a first step, you will need to find important passages, characters, and facts in each documents in the PDF Package.

These intra-document bookmarks link to a location inside the same document.

To create a bookmark in a document:

1. Open the Bookmark Panel by clicking on the Bookmark button:
   
2. Go to the page or view you wish to save as a bookmark
3. Click the New Bookmark button
   
   Or, hit Ctrl-B (Command-B on the Mac)
4. Edit the bookmark text as needed
   

Inter-Document Bookmarks

An inter-document bookmark points to a location outside the document.

A Cover Sheet is the backbone of the entire PDF Package. It can contain bookmarks which point to any place in any of the documents it contains.

Since the Cover Sheet is always available by clicking on the Cover Sheet button, it is a convenient way to switch context between all of the documents in the case and the individual documents.

Follow these steps to create a bookmark in the Package Cover Sheet which points to a file within the Package:

1. Click the Cover Sheet button for the Package:
   
   
2. Open the Bookmark Panel by clicking on the Bookmark button:
   
   
3. Click the New Bookmark button
   
   Or, hit Ctrl-B (Command-B on the Mac)
4. Type some text for your bookmark
5. Select the bookmark, right-click and choose Properties
   
   
   Or, type Ctrl-I (Command-I on the Mac)
6. The Bookmark Properties Window Appears.
   Click on the Actions tab at the top of the window.
   
   
7. Delete the "Go to page in this document action" by
   - Selecting the action
   - Clicking the Delete button
   
   
8. Select "Go to a Page View" from the Select Action pop-up menu:
   
   
9. Click the Add button
   
10. The Set View window appears
    
    Don't click any buttons in this window yet. You need to navigate to a bookmark in one of the documents in the package.
11. Click in the PDF Package Top View and select a document. Open the bookmarks panel if necessary, and click on the bookmark:
    
    
12. Now, click the Set Link button.
    
    

Repeat the process as necessary to add more bookmarks to the Cover Sheet.

I've written previously regarding how . . .

1. Acrobat can help you winnow down the large number of documents in a case using full-text search.
2. 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

PDF Packages,Case Analysis,Case Management

It's easiest to think of a PDF package as a box that can hold a great many documents— both PDFs and non-PDFs.

Structurally, the Cover Sheet of a PDF Package is the container PDF which "holds" all the other documents.

The Cover Sheet contains a list of all of the documents in the package, much like the Packing Slip on the outside of a box.

To view the Cover Sheet for the Package, click the Cover Sheet button in the Package interface:

Click the Top View button to see a spreadsheet-like interface to the Package:

Customizing PDF Package Header Fields and Default View

The real power of PDF Packages for case analysis is using the spreadsheet-like Top View to track and classify the documents in he package.

For example, in a medical malpractice case, you might want to sort by medical records, reports from experts, insurance documents, etc. You might also want to add Bates Start and End Fields.

Customizing the PDF Package

1. Click the Options menu button in the upper right corner of the PDF Package and choose Package Properties . . .
   
   
2. In the Package Properties window, you can add fields and make other changes. If you click the Add button, you can add a new field. For example, you may want to classify documents by issue. You can add an Issue field easily.
   
   

Editing Package Header Text Values for Documents

You can edit the text in any field you create for the Package header. For example, you may wish to type in the Issue addressed in the document.

1. Right-click on the document in the list:
   
   
2. A window opens. Add the text you need.
   
   

Sorting by Header Fields

You can easily sort by any header field by clicking on it. This allows you to see documents grouped by type. For example, you could look at the Source for all the files in our case:

Frequently Asked Questions about Package Headers

In working with paralegals and attorneys, I often get asked the following:

Can you print or save the text in the Package header?
Not in Acrobat unfortunately. Evermap's AutoSplit plug-in for Acrobat can, however.

Can Acrobat automatically detect the Bates Numbers in a PDF Package?
No, unfortunately you will have to enter them manually. You can use the text selection tool to copy the Bates number to the clipboard and then paste it into the Header field. It is time consuming, however.

How large can a PDF Package be?
PDF Packages don't have specific limits, either in file size, number of pages, or number of documents. I've opened and worked with PDF Packages with over 5000 documents, but they were mostly short, text-based documents. My experience has been that PDF Packages can be slow to open if they contain large numbers of scanned documents. Your mileage will vary based on the capabilities of your computer.

Can you search for text in Package header fields?
No, but you can sort the fields and likely find what you want. Searching across a package can find text in documents, comments and bookmarks.

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:

1. Flatten the document so that Stamps and Annotations become part of the document layer
2. Embed your signature as an image, rather than a stamp
3. 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.

Acrobat Comments,PDF Comments,Printing Acrobat Comments,Flattening PDF,Flattening Comments

Flattening a PDF embeds the stamps and annotations into the main document layer. This action will slightly reduce the file size and ensure that all annotations will print, no matter what setting is chosen in the Print Window.

Since the document no longer contains comments per se, your recipient can no longer respond using Acrobat comment tools to your text edits, highlights and so on.

One way to flatten comments is to print the PDF to the Adobe PDF print driver and save it as a new document. I don't recommend this approach because it can lead to a loss of functionality and quality. Bookmarks and hyperlinks are discarded and the image quality could deteriorate depending on your PDF settings.

A better solution is to use a free script available on Adobe's AcrobatUsers.com website. This solution adds a Flatten Comments menu option to Acrobat. It's free and it works well, although it is a bit of a "salt the earth" approach to the problem.

Embedding your Signature as an Image

If you are most concerned that your signature print out, try embedding it as image instead of using the Stamp tool.

Scan in your signature at 300 dpi in either black and white or color. Then, save as a GIF file.

Then, follow the instructions in my blog article How to Import/Place an Image in a PDF.

Adding a Print with Stamps Button

A recipient-friendly alternative is to add a special button to the document that prints the document with the comments.

Copy and Paste the Button

You can easily copy the functioning button from sample file below provided onto the PDF of your choice.

Print Comments Button (518K PDF)

This document includes several types of annotations and stamps which makes it ideal for testing.

Full instructions are on the PDF. You'll need Acrobat Professional to add the Print with Stamps and Comments button.

How it Works

Buttons are a standard Acrobat form component. Many different types of actions may be assigned to buttons including custom JavaScript.

In the example above, I attached the following code to the button:

var pp = this.getPrintParams();

pp.interactive = pp.constants.interactionLevel.silent;

pp.printContent = pp.constants.printContents. docAndComments;

this.print(pp);

When the user clicks the button, the document is immediately printed with comments and stamps to their default printer.

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.

The goal of Adobe's Pre-release Program is to:

… solicit early feedback on new features and bugs in order to produce a unique and a bug free product that can deliver maximum results.

We need you to test the software in your environment and let us know about any bugs or issues you find along the way. That helps us build a better product.

A benefit for you is that issues that affect your use of the product are reported, logged and hopefully fixed before we ship the new version of Acrobat. Of course, along the way you'll get to see the whole breadth of new features in the product.

Confidentiality Agreement

Before participating in the program, Adobe will ask you to complete a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Before our official announcement, we need you to keep the information you learn about the new product confidential.

Do I really have to test the software?

In a word, yes. We would like folks to spend a few hours per week testing the product and reporting bugs and issues.

What does Adobe offer besides access to early testing versions?

Once accepted into the Pre-release Program, you will have access to recorded eSeminars, program notes and an online forum.

Our Product Managers are active participants in forum and are interested in what you have to say. This is your opportunity to have voice your opinion.

Pre-release Software: Caution!

Pre-release software, or Beta software as it is sometimes called, is by definition incomplete and unstable.

Pre-release software can seriously mess up your computer! Do not load pre-release software on a machine that is critical to your day-to-day work.

You'll want to test in a "safe" environment you can afford to lose:

• Use an extra PC which you can reload with the OS if needed. An external hard drive and cloning software makes reloading less burdensome.
  • Norton Ghost and Drive Image are popular for the PC
  • Carbon Copy Cloner is free product or the Mac
• Run the pre-release software in a "virtual machine" environment:
  • Safely run a unique Windows installation on your PC using VMWare or Microsoft's free Virtual PC.
  • Mac users can emulate Windows on their Intel Macs using Parallels.
  • Mac users may soon be able to virtualize Mac OSX Leopard on according to the Macintosh News Network.

Final Thoughts

As an Adobe employee, I'm sometimes privy to the new things that we have planned for Acrobat.

I can't tell you details or when future versions might be announced, but I'm really excited about the new features that will benefit legal professionals.

When you join the Pre-release Program, it allows Adobe to build a better, more stable product and it brings you into a special, close relationship with Adobe.

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.

The document below includes the slides presented during the session. The Resource slides, shown separately during the event, have been added to this document.

Todays_Communication_Challenges_blog.pdf (505K PDF)

Files open in new window.

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:

1. Export the PDF as a TIFF, JPEG or other image format
2. Use a screen shot utility to "grab" a portion of the screen.
3. Print the PDF to a TIFF file
4. 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.

The Snapshot Tool captures to the clipboard either:

• The visible portion of a PDF page
• Part of a PDF page

Where is the Snapshot tool?

Here's how to access the Snapshot Tool:

1. Right-click the Hand tool in the Acrobat toolbar
   
2. Choose Snapshot tool from the menu:
   

The Snapshot tool is part of the Select and Zoom toolbar which is normally visible in Acrobat. If this toolbar is not visible, choose View—>Toolbars—>Select and Zoom.

Taking a Snapshot of a Page

Here's how to take a picture of your PDF document:

1. Open a PDF and set the view as desired.
   I generally choose a 50% or 60% view.
2. Select the Snapshot Tool
   
   
3. Click once right in the middle of the PDF document
   Alternately, you can click and drag to marquee a portion of the screen.
4. You'll see this message:
   
   

Using the PDF Page Thumbnail in PowerPoint

Switch to PowerPoint and choose Edit—>Paste.

An image of your page will appear on your PowerPoint slide.

Once the image is in PowerPoint, you may wish to size or style the pasted image.

Adding a border and drop shadow helps your audience recognize the document in your presentation:

Here's how to adjust and style the image in PowerPoint:

• Scale it
  Grab a handle and scale to the appropriate size
  
  
  
• Add a border
  Use the Drawing toolbar to change the line color to black.
  
  
• Add a drop shadow
  Use the Drawing toolbar to set a drop shadow
  
  

Creating a Link to the original PDF

Adding a hyperlink from the PDF thumbnail to the original PDF will allow you to quickly show relevant portions of a document.

Here's how to create the link in PowerPoint:

1. Right-click on the PDF thumbnail and choose Hyperlink
2. In the Insert Hyperlink window:
   A) Choose the Existing File option
   B) Find your PDF and choose it.
   
   
   
   

   Note: Keep all you PowerPoint presentation and PDFs together in the same folder to avoid broken hyperlinks.

Try it! When you enter slide show mode in PowerPoint, a single click will open the original PDF. Alt-Tab to get back to PowerPoint.

How much is the Snapshot tool capturing?
Further Reading for Technical Savants

The number of pixels captured by the Snapshot tool depends on the the pixel resolution of your display. If you run a higher resolution display, you will capture more pixels.

Generally, you don't need to worry about this "geeky" stuff if you intend to show your slide deck on a digital projector.

Acrobat has a preference which allows you to set a higher resolution for Snapshot images. However, I found that even after I pasted these high-resolution images into PowerPoint (I used PowerPoint 2003) that they were reduced to screen resolution.

A workaround is to export a TIFF file from Acrobat and then place that in your PowerPoint file.

In Acrobat, choose File—>Export—>Image—>TIFF. In the Export Options window you can choose your desired resolution.

Adobe applicationa such as Photoshop deal properly with all the data on the clipboard.

For those who wish to experiment with this:

1. Choose Edit—>Preferences and click on the General tab
2. Check "Use Fixed resolution for Snapshot tool images"
   
   
   The best choice will depend on the resolution of your output device. Note that setting the resolution very high slows image capture and places a lot of data on the clipboard.

Visit the Legal PowerPoint Guru

Craig Ball is a litigator and electronic discovery expert who also lectures on the legal applications of PowerPoint. Craig has some terrific tips available on his website at http://www.craigball.com. (opens in a new window). Make sure to download the free 41-Page PowerPersuasion Material.

PDF redaction,pdf clean-up

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.

Read on to learn how…

I've written about using the Redaction tool before in my article, Acrobat 8 New Features: Redaction.

Redaction is the permanent deletion of data from a document. One little known Acrobat redaction feature is the ability to use "No Color" when redacting. This handy feature is great for cleaning up scanned images.

Follow these steps to use a "No Color" redaction for scanned image cleanup:

1. Choose View—>Toolbars—>Redaction
   The Redaction toolbar will appear.
   
   
   
2. Click the Mark for Redaction tool
   
   
3. Click and drag a rectangle around the items on the page you wish to remove. In this case, we'll remove a hole punch.
   
   
   
   When you hover over the object, a black redaction mark appears:
   
   
   We'll change the appearance from black to "no color"
   
4. Right-click on top of the Redaction mark and choose Properties…
   
   
5. The Redaction Properties window appears.
   (A) Change the fill color for the redaction mark to "No Color"
   (B) Optional: Check "Make Properties Default" to always redact to "No Color"
   
   
6. Click OK.
   When you hover over your redaction mark, you will see a preview of the cleaned up area.
   
   The hole punch mark is gone!
   
   

Applying the Redactions

Once you have marked up all the areas of the document to be cleaned, you need to apply the redactions to make final changes to your document.

1. Click the Apply Redactions button on the Redaction toolbar.
2. You'll receive a stern warning. Redactions are permanent.
   
   
3. Acrobat will next ask if you would like to examine the document for metadata.
   
   
   You may skip this step depending on your workflow. Click the No button.

When you go to save the document, Acrobat will prompt you to rename the file.

While you may save over the original document, note that redactions are permanent and irrevocable. After you save over your original document, anything you marked is gone forever.

One Final Tip

If you regularly need to either redact or clean up documents, docking the Redaction toolbar can be convenient:

1. Start Acrobat, but do not open any documents
2. Choose View—>Toolbars—>Redaction
3. Choose View—>Toolbars—>Dock Toolbars or Ctrl-F8 (Command-F8 on the Macintosh)
4. Quit Acrobat

The Redaction toolbar will be docked for all future sessions.

Acrobat Legal Links List. Acrobat Legal Resources

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!

Mark has been with Adobe almost ten years and I have had the great pleasure of working with him for the last four years.

Mark Middleton

Although he is currently an Account Specialist who works with the largest law firms in the country, he has an extensive marketing background. Mark is the primary driver behind the Legal Forums we sponsor all over the country. At these events, you can witness Mark and I cover three hours of in-depth demo and training on Acrobat.

So, it was only natural for him to be the keeper of the "All things Legal" list.

Mark's Legal Link List

This list contains links to archived recordings, deployment information, training, documentation and lots more. It's a great starting point for anyone who wants to know about the legal applications of Adobe Acrobat.

Go to Mark's Acrobat Legal Link List

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.

Don't worry— until you apply redactions, they are simply Acrobat annotations. If you accidentally click the Apply Redaction button a stern warning message is presented. If you accidentally click OK, Acrobat will ask you to rename your file.

Once the words are highlighted, Acrobat can flexibly allow you to view, delete or summarize the comments.

Highlighting Multiple Words throughout a PDF

To persistently highlight multiple words in a PDF, follow these steps:

1. OCR the document if necessary. Acrobat cannot search for words unless there is a text layer in the document.
2. Choose Tools—>Redaction
   This will open the Redaction Toolbar
3. Click the Search and Redact button
   This will open the Search window
   
   You may need to click the Arrange Windows button if you cannot see both your document and the Search window.
4. Type in your search term. Note two important options for Whole Words and case sensitivity.
5. Click the Search and Redact button
   
   
6. Click Check All which will mark each result.
   
   If needed, you can click on each search result in the list to see the corresponding highlighted word in the document. This allows you to highlight a portion of the "hits" in the document.
7. Click the Marked Checked Results for Redaction button at the bottom of Search window.
   
8. If you have additional words you would like to highlight, click the New Search button:
   
   Then, repeat steps 4 to 7 above.
9. Close the Search window

Working with the Highlighted Words

Once Redaction highlights have been applied, you can use the Comments Panel to sort through the marked words. Here's how:

1. Choose View—>Navigation Panels—>Comments
   Alternatively, click on the Comments Panel button at the lower left hand corner of the screen.
   
2. You can work with each comment in the list.
   (A) Click on any word in the list to highlight it.
   (B) Add a comment to the highlighted word.
   
   

Summarizing Comments

Once words are highlighted, it is easy to create a comment summary which creates a new document containing only the pages with the marked words.

1. Choose Comments—> Summarize Comments…
2. In the Summarize Comments window, there are a variety of options to choose.
   
   Set to:
   - Document and comments with connector lines on single pages
   - Disable "Pages containing no comments"
   
   
   

   You may like other Layout settings. Try them out. The third option produces a listing-only style document.

3. Click the Create PDF Comment Summary button
   
4. Acrobat will create a new document which looks like this:
   

Helpful Tips

Here are a few tips that will come in handy while managing this kind of project.

1. Showing and Hiding Comments
   To hide all comments
   Comments—> Comment View—> Hide All Comments
   Or, from the keyboard, Shift-Ctrl-8
   
   To show all comments
   Comments—> Comment View—> Show All Comments
   Or, from the keyboard, Ctrl-8
   
   
2. Deleting Comments
   Open the Comments Panel
   Select a comment, then CMD-A to Select them all
   Hit the Delete Key
   
   
3. Marking Multiple Documents
   Acrobat can also mark words across multiple files. In the Search window, Choose the option for All PDF Documents in . . . and select a folder containing your files.