Adobe Education Leaders

For some reason, educational institutions don’t like to take the time to run Form Field recognition before publishing PDF forms. Adobe Reader users will not be able to digitally fill out the form unless the form has had the fields added in Acrobat. Using the Form Field Recognition tool is ridiculously easy (Forms > Form Field Recognition).

If you don’t take the time to run FFR, at least activate the Typewriter tool for your Acrobat Reader users (Full-blown Acrobat users can activate the Typewriter tool anytime). The Typewriter tool allows text to be typed anywhere on a document.

To activate the Typewriter Tool for Acrobat Reader users:

1. Open Adobe Acrobat 8
2. Click Tools > Typewriter > Enable Typewriter Tool in Adobe Reader

Useless bit of information – The longest word that can be typed using only the top row of alphanumeric keys is “typewriter.” (I know your testing it out…now get back to work!)

Posted by Scott Trudeau at 02:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I often find it necessary to single out various pages from a PDF document and combine them into another. For example, I may need to combine pages 3, 5, and 10 from a fifty page document into a new PDF.

Acrobat provides an “extract pages” option that allows you to extract a range of pages, but this option does not allow for the combination of discontinuous pages. However, you do have a couple of options.

Option 1 – Use the “drag and drop” method as described by the Acrobat for Legal Professionals blog.

Option 2 – Use the “Create PDF from Multiple Files” option using the directions below (my preferred method)

Directions for Option 2

1. Open Adobe Acrobat 8
2. Click on the Create PDF button
3. Select the “From Multiple Files” option

4. The Combine Files dialogue box will open. Click the Add Files button
5. Find the PDF file with the pages you wish to extract and click the Add Files button
6. The PDF will appear in the Combine Files Dialogue, now to select the specific pages.
7. Click the Choose Pages button

8. The Preview and Select Page Range dialogue box will open. This will allow you to type in both a range of pages and non discontinuous pages. For example, if you wished to include pages 1 through 5 and pages 10, 11, and 15 you would simply select the Pages radio button and type 1-5,10,11,15. Cool!

9. Acrobat also provides a Preview tool to help select the correct pages.
10. Click the OK button.
11. The Combine Files dialogue will open and provide an overview of the pages that you selected.

12. From here, decide if you want to combine pages from another document or proceed forward by clicking the Next button.
13. Make sure the Merge files into a single PDF button is selected and click the Create button.
14. Sit back and watch Adobe Acrobat works its magic!

Posted by Scott Trudeau at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Photoshop Elements is an amazing program and once you get the basics down you can really “go to town” on your photographs. This short tutorial will demonstrate a few tips and techniques based around an Earth Day theme.

Skills:
•Text Effects
•Text Tool Tips
•Drop Shadow
•Quick Selections

VIEW TUTORIAL

Posted by Scott Trudeau at 09:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Do you get excited about new cutting edge interactive software?
Do you like squashing bugs?
Are you willing and able to install software that might be “less than stable”?

If you answered yes to all of these questions then the Adobe Flash team wants to talk to you! The Flash team is current is currently seeking beta testers from the education community. If you are interested, please send me a message! jschuman@adobe.com

Thanks!
John Schuman
Education Solutions Architect
Adobe Systems Inc.
jschuman@adobe.com

Posted by John Schuman at 01:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This morning Adobe launched a public beta of Photoshop Express. Photoshop Express is aimed at the casual user who is interested in performing fast edits. Along with the basic editing tools (think crop, resize, and rotation), Express comes with the “Tuning” and “Effects” tools.

Tuning allows you to adjust white balance, highlights, sharpen the photograph, and even apply a soft focus.

If you are feeling creative try applying an effect or six. Express comes with six effects that can easily be applied to an image. Use the “Pop Color” effect to make a specific color...well… “pop”, or apply one of the neat “Distort” effects. The other effects include sketch, black and white, hue, and tint.

Express also integrates with Facebook, Photobucket, and Picasa as well as offers an Adobe gallery for sharing photos straight from Express . You can also rate your images, add captions, and create albums.

All you need is an Internet connection and the Adobe Flash player (a bit of creativity helps). So…what are you waiting for? Go sign up!

Posted by Scott Trudeau at 08:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)