Acrobat for Legal Professionals

Over the past few months, I’ve received a number of inquiries about Acrobat and Office 2010 compatibility.

Adobe Acrobat X is the first version of Acrobat to support Microsoft Office 2010.

Didn’t Acrobat 9 ship recently? Why doesn’t Acrobat 9 support Office 2010?

The timeline below shows that Acrobat 9 shipped two years before Office 2010.

• Acrobat 9 shipped in June 2008
• Microsoft Office 2010 shipped  in June 2010
• Adobe Acrobat X shipped in November 2010

What does Adobe mean by “support for Office 2010”?

Adobe Acrobat X installs toolbars and advanced integration— called PDF Makers— into Office 2010 applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.

In addition to offering one-click conversion from Office applications, the PDF Makers enable additional functions within Acrobat and Windows Explorer. In fact, Acrobat itself relies on the PDF Makers working correctly for important functions.

Can’t users just print to the PDF Print Driver?

The Adobe PDF Print driver offers basic PDF creation via the Print command.

Output from the PDF Print Driver is not functionally equivalent to that of the Adobe PDF Makers.

What will my organization miss if I do not install the Acrobat X PDF Makers?

Here are a few of the key features that will be missed using an earlier version of Acrobat with Office 2010.

• Bookmarks
• Links (Navigational links such as cross-references, table of contents, footnotes and endnotes)
• PDF Creation from Windows Explorer
• Combine multiple file types (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) into a single PDF
• Convert comments in Word, Excel and PowerPoint to PDF Comments
• Comment Routing from PDF back to Word
• Select worksheets for conversion in Excel
• Create PDF and automatically attach to email
• Tagged PDF for accessibility
• PDF/A-1A (PDF for Archiving)
• Multimedia Embedding
• Optimized conversion of PowerPoint
• Converts speaker notes from PowerPoint
• Create custom mail-merged PDF and automatically attach to email
• Manual and automatic archiving of email  from Outlook and Lotus Notes

What Office 2010 applications are supported by Acrobat X?

Acrobat X installs into the standard Microsoft Office ribbon interface in supported applications:

Acrobat X offers PDF Maker integration for the following Office 2010 applications:

• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft Excel
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• Microsoft Outlook
• Microsoft Visio (Pro only)
• Microsoft Project (Pro only)
• Microsoft Access (Pro only)
• Microsoft Publisher (Pro only)

Although many of the conversion options are common to all Office applications, some PDF maker
functions are application-specific.

Do the Acrobat PDF Makers work in Office 64-bit mode?

Yes. The Acrobat 10.1 update (June 2011) introduced 64-bit versions of the PDF Makers.

What do the Acrobat X ribbons look like in Office 2010?

Here are a few examples:

Microsoft Word 2010 PDF Maker

Microsft Excel 2010 PDF Maker

Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 PDF Maker

Microsoft Outlook 2010 PDF Maker

Microsoft Visio 2010 PDF Maker

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Acrobat allows you to use a number of stamps that "live" in the annotation layer of the document.

For example, you could quickly add a Confidential stamp to your document:

Adding a stamp isn’t difficult in Acrobat X, but it is a few steps:

1. Open the Comments panel
2. Twirl open the Annotations section
3. Click on the Stamp tool
4. Choose a Stamp category
5. Choose a Stamp
6. Stamp it on your document

That isn’t hard, but it’s easy to reduce the number of steps. Here’s how . . .

Step 1: Add the Stamp to your Quick Tools bar

You can add your own favorite tools to the first row of tool icons in Acrobat.

To add the Stamp tool to the Quick Tools area:

A) Open the Comments panel
B) Twirl open the Annotations section
C) Right-click on the Stamp tool and choose Add to Quick Tools

The Stamp Tool is added to the toolbar:

Step Two: Choose your Favorite Stamps

Acrobat allows you to easily access frequently used stamps without having to dig through sub-menus. Here’s how to "favorite" a stamp . . .

1. Click the Stamp Tool and locate a stamp you like and stamp it on the document
2. Click on the stamp on the page to select it.
   Hint: When selected, the stamp selection handles will be visible:
   
3. Click on the Stamp tool menu and choose Add Current Stamp to Favorites
   

Now, your favorite stamp is available to apply in two clicks:

Bonus Tip 1: Use the Stamps Palette

The Stamps Palette is a floating, resizable window which offers a large preview of multiple stamps.

To open the Stamps Palette, simply go to your Stamp tool menu and choose Show Stamps Palette:

The Stamps Palette opens. Select a stamp and drag it onto your page:

Bonus Tip 2: You can "favorite" from the Stamps Palette

Here’s another way to favorite a stamp . . . just right-click on it in the Stamps Palette:

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Bates Numbering is the process of sequentially numbering legal documents.

Acrobat 8, 9 and X Pro allow you to apply and remove Bates Numbers to documents.

In Acrobat X, open the Tools panel and the Pages section:

In Acrobat 8 and 9, choose Advanced—> Document Processing—> Bates Numbering:

The ability to remove Bates Numbers is valuable in case you make a mistake during the numbering process. However, due to the adversarial nature of the legal business, attorneys may desire to limit what the other side can do with documents.

To whit, this email I received from an attorney last week:

What can I use to flatten Bates numbers so that they cannot be altered or removed using the Acrobat Bates numbering process?

I know I can print to PDF, save as TIFF, print-then-scan, etc., but am looking for a solution that will work in batch mode and not degrade the appearance of the file. Also, I don’t favor using security settings because I don’t want to restrict the user’s ability to access the file.

In this article, I’ll discuss how to “lock down” Bates Numbers so that they cannot be removed by Acrobat’s “Remove Bates” option.

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Law firms often have corporate letterhead designed to reflect the professionalism of the firm.

It’s only natural, then, that firms want to create digital letterhead that retains the firms branding when creating PDF files.

I recently received an email from a law firm that complained about “fuzzy text” when they attempted to create their PDF letterhead. After a bit of digging, I determined that the firm had scanned their existing letterhead, placed it as an image in Word, then PDFd the file. The result, was poor quality, fuzzy text.

Bitmaps vs Vectors

In order to create good digital letterhead, you need to use the right kind of graphic format.

A bitmap image is composed of pixels, the small individual dots that make up an image. Bitmaps are resolution dependent meaning that their appearance varies depending on the type and resolution of the device on which they are displayed. Typical bitmap file formats are TIFF, JPEG, PNG, BMP and GIF. Because bitmap images do not scale well, they make a poor choice for your digital letterhead.

A vector image is mathematically defined and scales correctly to the device on which it is displayed such as a monitor or printer. Typical vector formats are EPS, WMF, and EMF. Vector graphics are a good choice for your digital letterhead.

Creating your Digital Letterhead Graphic

The best way to create your digital letterhead graphic is in a vector illustration program such as Adobe Illustrator.

However, since most legal professionals don’t have a copy of Illustrator laying around, I’ll show you how to create the letterhead graphic in PowerPoint.

The instructions below are for Office 2007 and 2010, but earlier versions will work just fine.

1. Launch PowerPoint. A new, blank slide show should appear. If not, choose New and create one.
   
2. You’ll insert a Text Box to type into:
   A) Click the Insert tab
   B) Click the Text Box tool
   
3. Click and drag to draw a text box in a blank area of the slide.
   
4. Type in your text and format it as you like. You can add borders, fills, and other text boxes if necessary.
   

   Getting the right Look for the Text Box Here are some links from the Microsoft website with some tutorials on using Text Boxes in PowerPoint: Change or remove a border from a text box or shape Add or delete a shape fill or shape effect

    

5. Select the text box(es) on the slide (you might want to group them first), then right-click and choose Save As Picture
   

6. From the Save As Type menu, choose Windows Metafile and save the file to a location of your choice.
   You might also want to save the PowerPoint file in case you want to make changes at a later time.
   

Using your Letterhead Graphic in Microsoft Word

It’s simple to use the WMF file you created above in Word.

You can use it in the body of the document or in the header or footer area.

To insert the image in Word:

1. Open or create a new document in Word
2. Click the Insert tab then click Picture (example here is inserting the picture in the header)
   
3. Locate the letterhead graphic and insert it.
   

You’ll notice that the graphic looks nice on screen in Word.

Converting your Letterhead to PDF

Once your graphic is inserted, you can create a PDF by printing to the Adobe PDF Print Driver or by using the Adobe PDF Maker in Word.

The result looks great on-screen in Adobe Reader or Acrobat and also prints beautifully:

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If your firm does IP work for technology companies, or is involved in cases involving software source code, you may be obliged to submit your client’s source code to the USPTO, a court or third party.

Since source code is considered a trade secret, most regulatory agencies use a "50%" rule. Source code submitted is obscured so that it cannot be used as-is.

This process, referred to as code obfuscation, protects your client from disclosure of their valuable software source code.

Curiously, some law firms use a paper-based process for this. One law firm I visited created a series of diagonal bars on transparency film, then photocopied thousands of pages.

As you can guess, that workflow was time-consuming and expensive.

Fortunately, the process is easy to automate in Acrobat X. Not only can we hide the code, we can completely delete the hidden code so it can never be recovered.

Step 1: Create a Code Mask

A Code Mask is an overlay on your document which hides the underlying text or images. The mask must have transparent areas where codes shows through and opaque areas which hide the text. You can create a mask using a graphics program like Adobe Illustrator or Adobe InDesign.

You can download a sample Code Mask below.

sample_code_mask.pdf (37K) (letter size 8.5 by 11)

Step 2: Convert Source Code to PDF

If your client did not supply PDFs, you’ll need to convert the source code files. Most often, you’ll receive plain text files.

Check your court rules or eFiling guidelines to see if your court requires specific font sizes or margins. You can open the source code text file in a word processor and print to PDF.

Alternately, you can convert the text to PDF directly in Acrobat. Simply open the text file in Acrobat and— poof— you’ve got a PDF.

Step 3: Add the Code Mask to the document

You will use the Watermark feature to add the Code Mask to the document.

1. Start watermarking . . .
   A) Click the Tools panel
   B) Open the Pages section
   C) Click the Watermark menu and choose Add Watermark
   
2. The Watermark window opens.
   Here’s what to do:
   A) Click the Browse button and locate the Code Mask file. (You can use my sample above)
   B) Set the Scale relative to target page to 100%

   
   C) Option: Click Save Settings . . . to save your setting so you can use it again later.
   

3. Click OK
4. Open the Protection section of the Tools panel, and choose Sanitize Document.

   

5. The Sanitize alert opens. Click OK.
   
   

   What does Sanitize Document do? Sanitize Document is a robust metadata removal function in Acrobat. Sanitize will rasterize the document turning it into an image so that the underlying code cannot be recovered. Functionally, it does in one step what Remove Hidden Information does with all options set to ON.

6. Give the file a name and click the Save button.
   

Automate the Process using an Action

With an Action in Acrobat X, you can automate the process above across:

• A file open in Acrobat
• Any number of txt or PDF files you want to combine, then obfuscate
• Multiple individual files
• Grab an image from your scanner and obfuscate.

I’ve created an Acrobat X Action you can use to automate the process. This action:

1. Asks you to locate the code files (can be PDF or TXT files)
2. Asks you for the destination for the obfuscated files
3. Obfuscates the code as shown with a watermark
4. Sanitizes the document removing all code underneath the code mask
5. Saves the file as an Acrobat 5 (PDF 1.4) level file
6. Adds the suffix _obfuscated to the file name (e.g. mycode_obfuscated.pdf)

Because the watermark action requires a file local to your file system, you’ll need to tweak the Action a bit. Don’t worry, it’s easy! Here’s how:

1. Download the Acrobat X Code Obfuscation Action (2K)
   Note: This file is stored on Acrobat.com. Click the download button after the page loads.
2. Double click the Code Obfuscation Action.sequ downloaded in Step 1.
   Click the Import button to add it to your Actions panel.
   
3. The Edit Actions window appears.
   Make sure the Code Obfuscation Action is selected and click the Edit button.
   
4. Click the Options button next to the Watermark step of the Action.
   
5. Acrobat won’t be able to find the Source code mask file, so you will see an error message. Click OK.
   .
6. The Watermark Window appears. Click the Browse button and locate the watermark file, following the steps noted above in the Watermarking section.
7. Click OK then Save the Action.

Running the Action

Running the Code Obfuscation Action is simple!

1. Open the Tools panel in Acrobat and then open the Actions Wizard section
2. Click the Code Obfuscation Action
   
3. Click Add Files button and add the files you wish to process.

Continue reading…

I’ll be in Columbus, Ohio presenting Adobe Acrobat X and Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 at the Hyatt Hotel on Capitol Square on Wednesday, June 29th.

This event is free to attend. You will leave with a much greater understanding of Acrobat X and/or Creative Suite 5.5 and how to get the most out of these products. 

To register, go to http://events.SignUp4.com/Adobe.

Adobe Acrobat X Session	Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Session
9:30am -12:30pm	1:30pm – 4:30pm
Registration and Breakfast at 9AM	Registration and Lunch at 1PM
Location Hyatt Hotel on Capitol Square 75 East State Street Columbus, Ohio 43215 Tel: (614) 228-1234 Map and Directions
Click here for a detailed agenda

Bonus! Prize Drawings

We will be raffling off an Acrobat X Pro in the morning and a Creative Suite 5.5 Design Premium in the afternoon in addition to other valuable prizes chosen randomly from the evaluation forms. You must be present to win.

Continue reading…

Since the Federal Courts have announced their intent to require PDF/A for court submissions, I’ve received a number of inquiries along these lines:

Would it be a good idea to always create PDF/A documents?

I do not advise law firms to use PDF/A all of the time. PDF/A view mode in Acrobat will not allow you to do many of the day to day edits you need. For example, if you want insert pages in a PDF/A document, PDF/A View mode will prevent the change.

Instead, I advise creating PDF documents using a PDF Setting which is easy to conform later to PDF/A.

Creating an “Near PDF/A” Setting

Using the steps below, you will modify the existing PDF/A setting provided by Acrobat to create a new one.

1. In Acrobat, choose Edit> Preferences.
2. Click on the Convert To PDF category item in the list at left
3. Select Microsoft Word from the middle list
4. Click the Edit Settings button
   
5. In the Adobe PDF Settings window, make sure that PDF/A-1b:2005 is selected, then click the Edit button:

   

6. Choose the Standards section in the Edit Settings window:
   
7. At the top right, under Standard Reporting and Compliance, set the Compliance Standard to None.
   
8. Click the Save As . . . button:
   
9. Name the file. I named mine Near PDFa.joboptions

   The PDF Setting file will be saved in the users default Acrobat PDF Settings folder:
   

10. Click Save, then OK twice.

Download the Near PDFa Setting File I’ve already created the Near PDFa setting. You can download the setting and save it in the location below instead of making your own. Near PDFa Job Setting

Multiple Ways to Create PDF

Acrobat offers a multitude of methods for creating PDFs from Office documents:

• Via the AdobePDF Print driver
• Via the PDFmaker buttons installed into popular office applications
• By combining native documents using the Combine function in Acrobat

Each approach will require some set-up to ensure that all documents created have fonts embedded.

Setting the Near PDF/A Setting for the Adobe PDF Print Driver

Follow these steps to set the Adobe PDF Print Driver to always use the "Near PDFa" setting:

1. From any application, choose File> Print
   A) Select the Adobe PDF from the Name list.
   B) Click the Properties button
   
   

   Your Print Window might look Different . . . : The print window may look quite a bit different depending on the application you use and whether you are on XP or Windows 7. Look for a button or link labeled Properties, Print Options, Print Properties or Printer Properties

2. A) Choose the Near PDFa setting from the Default Settings list
   B) Click OK.
   

Setting Embed All for the PDFmaker Buttons installed in Office Applications

Acrobat Standard installs 1-button PDF conversion buttons into popular Office applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. Acrobat Pro additionally offers support for Visio, Project, Access, Publisher and Internet Explorer.

Follow these steps to set an Office PDFmaker button to always use the Near PDFa setting. The example below is from Microsoft Word.

1. Launch the application of your choice, but do not open a document.
2. For Office 2007 and 2010 apps such as Word, Excel or PowerPoint, choose the Acrobat ribbon then click Preferences
   
   For Office 2003 apps such as Word, Excel or PowerPoint, Choose AdobePDF> Change Conversion Settings
3. Choose Near PDFa from the Conversion Settings list
   
4. Click OK

Setting Embed All for Combine or Create from Desktop in Acrobat

Acrobat allows users to convert several different kinds of native files using the Combine function or via the desktop.

When conversion takes place using these direct methods, you need to specify the desired conversion setting in Acrobat Preferences for each application supported.

1. In Acrobat, choose Edit> Preferences
   A) Click on the Convert to PDF category from the list at left
   B) Choose an application such as Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint from the list
   C) Click the Edit Settings button
   
2. In the Edit Settings window, change the Conversion Setting to “Near PDFa”
   
3. Click OK
4. Repeat for all applications

Related Font Embedding Issues

The main reason to use this setting is that it embeds all fonts and sets the color space correctly for PDF/A conformance later on.

Occasionally, you may run into issues where certain fonts cannot be embedded.

Corrupt Fonts
Fonts can be complex beasts and occasionally become corrupted. Try replacing the fonts on your system with known, good versions of fonts.

Non-Embeddable Fonts
Some fonts contain a “Do Not Embed” flag placed in the font by the font manufacturer as a license restriction.

OpenType fonts from Adobe do not have embedding restrictions, but some other manufacturers may not allow their fonts to be embedded. The only workaround is to replace the typeface with one without any restrictions.

On Windows 7, you can see if a TrueType font may be embedded by following these steps:

1. Click the Start button and open the Control Panel
2. Double-click the Fonts category
3. Right-click on a font and choose Properties
4. Click the Details tab. If Editable is listed, then the font may be embedded:

   

Continue reading…

As I mentioned in earlier articles, a PDF/A document is considered an archive that should not be changed.

Normally, Acrobat’s PDF/A View mode appears when you open a PDF/A document and making edits to the document is not possible:

Sometimes, however, you may need to revise a document before filing. For example, you might create a PDF/A document from Microsoft Word then insert some scanned pages.

In this case, it makes sense to remove the PDF/A information, make your edits, then conform the file using Save As.

In this article you’ll learn how to:

• Remove PDF/A using Preflight
• Use my free Remove PDFa Information Action

Removing PDF/A Information

The best way to remove PDF/A information is to use Preflight in Acrobat Pro. Here’s how:

1. Open a PDF document
2. In Acrobat 9 Pro:
   Choose Advanced> Print Production> PreflightIn Acrobat X Pro:
   A) Click the Options button to show the Print Production panel if it is not already open
   B) Open the Print Production panel and click Preflight

   

3. The Preflight window appears.
   A) Twirl open the PDF/A compliance section
   B) Select Remove PDF/A Information from the list
   C) Click Analyze and Fix
   

Using an an Acrobat X Action to Remove PDF/A Information

Acrobat X Actions can automate many tasks such as removing PDF/A information from a document.

Just about all of the Preflight functions are available via Actions including the profiles associates with PDF/A.

I’ve created the “Remove PDFa Informaiton” Action for you. Dowload it below . . .

Remove PDFa Information Action (106K PDF)

The PDF contains the Action itself along with installation instructions.

Running the Remove PDFa Information Action

Once you install the Action, it will appear at the top of your Action Wizard panel. Just click on the action name to run it.

If you have a document open, the Action will prompt you for a file location and to name the file.

If you do not have a file open, the Action will allow you to select files or a folder of files and run the Action on all of the files.

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Acrobat 9 and X offer powerful redaction tools including the ability to search on patterns such as:

• Social Security Numbers
• Email addresses
• Phone numbers
• Dates
• Credit card numbers

While the default patterns are useful, you may want to create your own patterns.

Fortunately, it is possible to add your own patterns with a bit of work. In this article, I’ll discuss how to create and add your own patterns.

Continue reading…

In my earlier articles on PDF/A, I skipped over one of the easier ways to conform an existing PDF document to PDF/A.

Using Save As is perhaps the easiest way to apply the transformations necessary to existing PDFs such as embedding fonts, setting color spaces and the other twenty or so checks that Acrobat can undertake to conform to the PDF/A specification.

In this article, you’ll learn how to:

• Use Save As in Acrobat X Pro to conform a non-PDF/A file to PDF/A-1b
• Use Save As in Acrobat 9 Pro to conform a non-PDF/A file to PDF/A-1b

As you might guess, the processes are very similar, but it’s a little easier in Acrobat X. My experience has been that Acrobat X is a bit faster and more reliable for conforming operations.

Using Save As to Conform a PDF to PDF/A-1b in Acrobat X

Follow these steps in Acrobat X . . .

1. Open a PDF file that you wish to conform to PDF/A
2. Choose File> Save As> More Options> PDF/A
   
   

   Note: You can also choose File>Save As>PDF, then choose PDF/A from the Save As Type menu

3. The Save As Window appears.
   - Click the Settings button
   
4. The Preflight window appears.
   (A) Choose PDF/A-1b for Federal Court Filings
   (B) Check to create according to a PDF/A-1b profile
   (C) Check "Apply Corrections"
   (D) Click the OK button
   
5. Click OK again to save and conform the file

Using Save As to Conform a PDF to PDF/A-1b in Acrobat 9 Pro

Follow these steps in Acrobat X . . .

1. Open a PDF file that you wish to conform to PDF/A
2. Choose File> Save As> More Options> PDF/A
   
3. The Save As Window appears.
   - Click the Settings button
   
4. The Preflight window appears.
   (A) Choose PDF/A-1b for Federal Court Filings
   (B) Check to create according to a PDF/A-1b profile
   (C) Check "Apply Corrections"
   (D) Click the OK button
   
5. Click OK again to save and conform the file

Using Save As to Conform a PDF to PDF/A in Acrobat 9 Pro

Follow these steps in Acrobat X . . .

1. Open a PDF file that you wish to conform to PDF/A
2. Choose File> Save As
3. The Save As Window appears.
   - Choose PDF/A from the Save As type list at the bottom of the window.
   
4. Click the Settings button in the Save As window
   
5. The Preflight window appears.
   (A) Choose PDF/A-1b for Federal Court Filings
   (B) Check to create according to a PDF/A-1b profile
   (C) Check "Apply Corrections"
   Click the OK button
   
6. Click OK again to save and conform the file

What if the file cannot be conformed to PDF/A?

Save As may not be able to conform a file to PDF/A in which case you will see a message similar to this:

There are several issues which could prevent conforming a file to PDF/A-1B:

1. The document requires fonts that you do not have on your system
2. The document uses fonts which have a "Do Not Embed" flag
3. The document has transparent objects
4. The document is damaged
5. The document is a XFA Form created with Adobe LiveCycle Designer

I wil be covering fix-ups and workarounds for difficult to conform files in future blog posts..

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