I can always tell when a particular capability of Acrobat is hitting the main-stream; that’s when the really good questions start coming in. Creating email archives using Acrobat has hit the main-stream.

You can use PDFMaker to archive individual, selected, or entire folders of Microsoft Outlook email messages to a PDF Portfolio. Within the PDF Portfolio, each email message appears as a separate PDF file along with any attachments in their original format. This is a great way to archive and store email messages at the end of a project or just keep information handy without clogging up your .PST file. If you need to print out an individual message, that’s pretty easy, just click the print button on the toolbar.

Recently, the complaint/question came in where a user wasn’t able to print all of the messages in the archive. On the surface, it does seem impossible… unless you understand that the email archive is built on top of our PDF Portfolio technology. Batch printing PDF files from an Email Archive in Acrobat X

With the latest update of Acrobat 9 and Reader 9, PDF Portfolios that were created in Acrobat X (ten) will play in version 9.4.2. When viewing PDF Portfolios in 9.4.2, everything will work pretty much as expected with just a few caveats. You can see from the images below that we’ve done our best to keep the experience in version 9 and X consistent but differences in the underlying API between Acrobat 9 and X can cause some issues that you should be aware of when viewing or modifying a PDF Portfolio in 9.4.2 that was created in version X. The list below provides details on what to expect.

Acrobat 9.4.2 Adds Backward Compatibility for PDF Portfolios

About PDF Portfolios

A PDF Portfolio contains multiple files assembled into an integrated PDF unit. The files in a PDF Portfolio can be in different formats and created in different applications. The original files retain their individual identities and file types but are assembled into one PDF Portfolio file. Users can open, read, edit, and format each component file independently of the other component files in the PDF Portfolio.

You can create a PDF Portfolio by using the File > Create PDF Portfolio command.

Adobe Acrobat 9.1 comes with 8 standard PDF Portfolio Layouts plus the Basic Grid in the Basic Layouts Category of the "Choose a Layout" tab. (see image to the right). Additional layouts can be installed into Acrobat in the form of .nav files (navigators) and will appear under a new category. To discover new categories, use the drop-down list which defaults to "Basic Layouts".

If you’ve received a .nav file and want to install it so that you can create PDF Portfolios using the new layout, follow the instructions below.

Installation:

Windows:
1. From Windows, select "Start" then "Run". Paste the following line into the text box and press enter

%USERPROFILE%\Application Data\Adobe\Acrobat\9.0\

2. Create a directory called "navigators" if you don’t already have one
3. Copy the .nav file to the "navigators" directory
4. Restart Acrobat if it’s running.
5. In the "Edit PDF Portfolio" panel you should see a new category in addition to "Basic Layouts". The category name will be different based on the .nav file.

OSX:
1. In your user folder, navigate to the following location: /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Acrobat/9.0_x86/
2. Create a folder called "Navigators" if you don’t already have one
3. Copy the .nav file to the "Navigators" folder
4. Restart Acrobat if it’s running.
5. In the "Edit PDF Portfolio" panel you should see a new category in addition to "Basic Layouts". The category name will be different based on the .nav file.