The Same Page

Another good question came through recently. It just happened to be a topic that I did not get a chance to cover at my "Review and Commenting" eSeminar for AcrobatUsers.com.

"What does the Migrate Comments command do, and how should I use the Migration status flags?"

Migrate Comments

If you only send out one draft version of a document for review before distributing the final version you are either a) brave or b) very very good. But I am sure you, like me, actually send two or more versions to others before finalizing the document. If your manager's manager's manager is as busy as mine, that might mean comments come back to you on a document after you have already sent out a new version. This newer version incorporates suggested changes from those who did get their comments back to you on time. So do you just ignore your manager's manager's managers feedback? That is probably not a good career move. Instead, you can migrate those late-arriving comments from an older version of the document in to the newer version using the "Migrate Comments" command.

But how does Acrobat know where to put those comments when you have already changed the document? It does so by looking at the text and structure of the document to determine where the comment or markup should go in the new version. This works best if the PDF documents are tagged, ideally created using something like PDFMaker for Microsoft Office and other applications, or when exporting to a Tagged PDF from Adobe InDesign.

The Acrobat 9 Help file describes best what happens to each comment type:

• Text comments that reference particular words, such as highlights, cross-outs, and insertion carets, appear within the word grouping where they were originally placed.
• Drawing markups and sticky notes appear in the same structural location as they did in the original document.
• Circle, polygon, rectangle, and stamp comments always appear on the same page as the original document.

To use the command, first open the two versions of the document with the comments in them. Then go to the Comments menu and choose "Migrate Comments"

If Acrobat cannot find the words or structure in the newer document that a comment was associated with in the older one, it will just place it on the page as it appeared before, unless the page has been deleted in which case it gets placed on the last page (well it has to go somewhere!). Text edits are converted to sticky note comments.

Migration Status Flags

There are several properties that you can apply (or see but not apply) to annotations on PDF files: your login name, the time and date the annotation was applied, icon, color and so on.

One of those properties is a "Migration Status". If you look at the Migrate Comments dialog box above, you will see that Acrobat gives you the option to "Review migrated comments in the Comments list". This will set each of the migrated comments with a "Not confirmed" migration status flag, then show those only in the Comments Navigation Panel. You can then check each one out to see if they are still applicable, and if so, set their status to "Confirmed" from either the Comments Navigation Panel toolbar or by right-clicking the annotation.

These are really nothing more than flags: use them in the way that suits you best for your document review workflow. And they are there to make sure that your manager's manager's manager's comments are all incorporated as quickly as possible, in case this time around she does look at the next version of the plan faster than usual.

Posted by Ali Hanyaloglu at 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As you know Adobe Acrobat is a family. And so is Acrobat.com, with a new addition called Acrobat.com Presentations. This has just been launched as a free beta on Adobe Labs, and all you need to get started using it is an Adobe ID, a web browser and the Adobe Flash Player.

Acrobat.com Presentations allows you to create some fantastic looking presentations online quickly and easily. So what's the big deal about that? Well, you can do this is in a collaborative way with others at the same time. Just as you can share documents authored in Buzzword, or files using Acrobat.com Share, you can share an online presentation with others, and let them be either a viewer or, better yet, a co-author. Giving those individuals that you need to work with the ability to author a document at the same time as you can help to make the presentation the best that it can be.

If you then want to give others the ability to review the presentation but not have access to it online, you have the option to export and download the presentation as a PDF file, then use Acrobat 8 and 9's Shared Reviews functionality to allow them to add and submit comments and markup.

Check it out for yourself at http://labs.acrobat.com, or read the Acrobat.com blog or follow the team via Twitter. And let them know what you think and what you would like to see via http://ideas.acrobat.com.

Posted by Ali Hanyaloglu at 1:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wow, is it really the middle of May already? What happened to the time? I am sorry for not getting the opportunity to post anything over the last few weeks. What with spring vacations with the family, taking advantage of any nice day there is to get the garden in shape, the excitement over the new Star Trek movie, and lots of Acrobat-related projects that I have been working on, it has been hard to pay attention to you all. So please do accept my apologies.

While I was working on those other things, there have been some interesting developments in Acrobat-land:

• The Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader 9.1.1, 8.1.5 and 7.1.2 updates were released last week to address security vulnerabilities. If you have not done so already, it would be well worth subscribing to the Adobe Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) and Adobe Secure Software Engineering Team (ASSET) blogs to stay up-to-date.
• Acrobat won a 2009 CODiE Award! The SIIA gave Acrobat 9 Pro Extended the award for Best Multi-Media Solution. What an honor! Our friends on the Acrobat.com, Creative Suite 4, LiveCycle and Captivate teams also won CODiE's. How cool is that?
• Amazon released the larger format Kindle DX. There is plenty of coverage of the eBook reading device already, and I do not have one (yet) to provide any comments, but the interesting news from Adobe's perspective is that Amazon (amongst others) is using the Adobe Reader Mobile SDK for built-in PDF viewing. Bill McCoy, who heads up Adobe's ePublishing Business wrote an article on this.
• Layers Magazine published their Fourth Annual Layers 100 Wicked Tips for all Adobe Creative Suite 4 applications. Lori DeFurio and I contributed 10 short tips on Acrobat 9 Pro for you to check out: they are about 1/3 of the way down (I wish the site authors had placed anchors, oh well). The other product tips are pretty good too.
• Speaking of Lori, her new show on Adobe TV called "Lori's Corner" was launched last week. Her first show has been posted, with her first very special guest: ME! Check it out, and let Lori (or me) know what you think. All I will say for now is, yes, we had considered wearing smoking jackets and holding brandy glasses, but Adobe legal would not allow it (just kidding). Enjoy!

Posted by Ali Hanyaloglu at 9:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)