Comments on: Why Shared Reviews?

By: Ali Hanyaloglu

Ali Hanyaloglu — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 15:33:14 +0000

[Lenny and I had been communicating off-blog on this topic. I meant to share the suggestions with everyone else sooner, so forgive me for the delay here]

I received a couple of options from engineering. They are based on the fact that PDF files under shared review have the original server location URL stored inside them in JavaScript.

1) Ask IT if they can create a redirect on the DOT’s internal DNS servers to reroute requests for the old server name and IP address over to the new one. This should work best, as the only thing that has changed is the server name – the path to the folder and file for the shared review is the same across the servers. That way, when the PDF file requests access to the old server, it should be redirected to the new one.
2) Modify the JavaScript in the PDF file under shared review. I suggest trying this with a test file first, should you make a mistake.
a. Open the file under shared review that is pointing to the older server.
b. Choose File > Save a copy… and give the file a new name. What this does is remove the Reader enablement so that you can make changes to the file.
c. Open the copy. Choose Advanced > Document Processing > Document JavaScripts…
d. There should be a couple of functions there. One will end in .register. Edit this function.
e. Look for all occurrences of the old server name and replace with the new one.
f. Save the PDF file. Close it. Reopen the file. See if it now syncs correctly with the new server.

By: lenny massotti

lenny massotti — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:48:08 +0000

Hello,

Have been happily using a shared review approach for PDF comments for about 2 years now, but have run into a server migration glitch this week. The local “shared” server where all of the archived comment server links were pointed toward was replaced with a new server . . . all the root folders and files were migrated and the XML files look okay to me? (sample included below)

The issue mainfests as a call to work offline since the orginal server named in the Welcome Back screen under “Comment Server: xyz” cannot be located.

Can we apply a system wide fix of some kind to re-direct the comment server associations? I am concerned that we have lost the archive of previous comments and may be unable to complete document reviews that were begun in advance of the Server Migtration, but were not yet consolidated for action.

Thanks in advance for any insight you can share.

By: Ali Hanyaloglu

Ali Hanyaloglu — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 22:05:50 +0000

Hi Anita, thanks for the comment. I wonder if it’s because users are trying to open the original PDF file from the SharePoint library directly? Also, make sure they have the ability to read and write files to the SharePoint library.

By: Anita Stegeman

Anita Stegeman — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 01:14:14 +0000

I keep running into problems using shared reviews. The latest, like Bill above, is the shared file is opening as a regular pdf for some, but other participate successfully. I am using Acrobat Professional 9 and Sharepoint to create the shared review. Users have Adobe Reader 8.0 or 9.0 or Acrobat. The ones having the problem have Internet Explorer 8.0. Others successfully using the shared review have Internet Explorer 6.0. I’m guessing the problem has to do with the version of Internet Explorer. I think shared review is really nice to use and those who can use it love it, but I need to be able to rely on it consistently across the company. Any suggestions? Is there a setting I should have them change in IE 8?

By: David Farr

David Farr — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 00:58:20 +0000

I’ve been sending email and shared reviews the last few years using Pro 8 on a shared Novell server. We can make it work but it’s completey non-intuitive to the poor reviewers themselves. When they publish comments it will tell them the comments couldn’t be published and for the reviewer to close the PDF they need to click NO I don’t want to publish, however the comments DO get published. Is this a Novell server mess-up?

By: Ali Hanyaloglu

Ali Hanyaloglu — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 11:14:51 +0000

Is it possible that a deadline may have been applied on the PDF file sent for Shared Review? Also, check where the comments are being stored online, and whether the relevant Shared Review folder and comments are still there (if a web server, network share or SharePoint workspace).

By: Bill Greeve

Bill Greeve — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:33:12 +0000

We’ve had excellent results using shared review, but now there’s a problem we can’t solve.

Some users who could open a shared review pdf no longer can. They can open the pdf, but as a normal pdf, not shared. I can’t find any reason why this has stopped working for some users.

thanks.

By: Tim Pehrson

Tim Pehrson — Tue, 12 May 2009 10:28:30 +0000

How to automatically enable Shared Review?

We are starting to use Adobe Shared Reviews for our workflow. We write our own in-house tools to do much of our workflow and document management. We want to start a shared review without going through the normal GUI interface – I.E. we want to automate starting the review from within our own in-house developed tool. Is there a way to do this? Are there command line arguments that make it possible? Are there scripts or other methods to automate starting a Shared Review that can be called from third-party tools (mainly our own)?

[ALI'S REPLY: There is no way to automate the initiation of shared reviews. However, there is a collaboration API to create custom review repositories: check the online collaboration documentation on http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat - it was created for Acrobat 8, but is still relevant for Acrobat 9]

By: Nicole

Nicole — Fri, 08 May 2009 15:32:58 +0000

Sorry for the late post. I hope you can help me. I am trying to use Acrobat 8 to perform shared reviews using a network folder.

After I click Finish in the wizard, the process freezes. Nothing else happens. The review is not created.

I do have read/write permission on the network folder. I am using Acrobat 3D version 8.1.4.

Do you know how I can fix this?

Thank you,
Nicole

[ALI'S REPLY: Sorry for the delay in posting these comments - Adobe recently updated our blogging system. Anyway, you need to be able to read, write and delete files to the folder. Ensure you have full access to the folder's contents. Also, try a different folder or new sub folder just as a trouble shooting step to see if that works.]

By: Jim Ramsay

Jim Ramsay — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:08:05 +0000

I've been using Acrobat for Shared Reviews for years, and I update review comments with the Set Status tool religiously, but I've never understood the meaning or purpose of the Migration and Review menu items. I use Review>Completed or Review>Rejected to mark comments I've acted on or rejected, and I use Review>Accepted for comments I act on but in a different way from what may have been suggested. I never use Canceled (how is that different from Rejected?) or any of the three Migration options. Are these documented anywhere, or is this a mystery feature only for Adobe insiders? [ALI'S RESPONSE: Glad to hear you have been using Shared Reviews, Jim. I will be writing an article on these flags and how they are used with the "migrate comments" command soon. But for now, there's nothing secret about them. In fact, continue to use them as flags to help you track the status of reviewing comments from others. Stay tuned.]