Creating files and forms in Adobe Acrobat Creating files from a document you created. Open "Acrobatexamplewin.doc" This is a word document with 2 bitmapped images and an object oriented image. Acrobat really comes in two parts. Acrobat itself which is an application, and Acrobat Distiller, which looks to the user like a printer. It's a handy way to think of distiller as a printer, except what you get out of it is a PDF file rather than a print. There is also a version called PDF writer that is sometimes distributed with some applications. Think of it as a crappy printer. It will create PDF files, but with less accurate reproduction and less compression.

Windows Select Print.This dialogue will vary considerably from application to application. Acrobat Distiller should be on the list of printers available.

Clicking on Properties will give you options available for our specific printer. This is normally where you would change page size, resolution, or select a different tray for special papers. There are three panels layout, paper/quality and Adobe PDF Settings. Layout is common to many printers and allows you to rotate the page and put multiple pages on a sheet. There is an Advanced button at the bottom of this panel. An odd characteristic of Acrobat distiller is that the paper size is selected in the dialogue box brought up by this button. The other choices on this panel really are rather advanced for most users.

Paper/Quality is where you usually select the tray the paper comes from and whether you want the document printed in black and white or color. These two are usually irrelevant with Acrobat Distiller. There is an Advanced button on this panel, but it brings up the same dialogue as the button on the Layout panel.

Creating files and forms in Adobe Acrobat Click on Edit Conversion Settings.There are five panels General, Compression, Fonts, Color, and Advanced. Under General, the most commonly used setting is Compatibility. If your document includes color and you think your viewers might be viewing it with version 3.0 of the reader, choose 3.0 compatible. Documents saved as 4.0 compatible will not show color in version 3.0. 3.0 compatible files will be slightly larger and there are limitations to the size of the file and some issues related to shading styles.. There are no real advantages to choosing version 5.0 compatible. There are other settings under General where you can choose page range if your applications settings don't allow this and set the default page size for Distiller document.

Adobe PDF Settings is where you find the properties unique to Acrobat. There is a menu at the top of this panel to choose Conversion Settings. These are presets of how the resolution of images in the document are converted in the PDF document, whether fonts are include, and compatability with older versions of Acrobat are selected. There are four presets, Screen, eBook, Print and Press. You can edit the settings and save new presets. In order to understand what the presets are lets look at what settings you change.

The Compression panel is where you choose how Distiller converts the bitmapped images in the document to reduce file size. Color, Grayscale and Monochrome images are set separately. You can reduce the size of files with bitmapped images by reducing the resolution of the image. Reducing the size of files also reduces the sharpness of an image. The goal is to keep only as much data as is necessary. You can also apply various file compression schemes which reduce the size of the file. At the most extreme compression settings (minimum) it can have an effect on the sharpness of the image. Most of the time it is desirable to reduce the size of the file by reducing the resolution of the image to only what's necessary, but in some cases, such as preparing files for commercial printing, it's more important to have the necessary resolution than to reduce file size.

Creating files and forms in Adobe Acrobat

The Color panel adjusts settings that are probably only appropriate for demanding color applications when you are preparing files for a commercial press. The Advanced panel has settings that primarily concern processing of PostScript files when using Distiller as a standalone application. The Screen settings preset is used for documents that will only be viewed on a computer screen. It is set for Acrobat 3.0 compatibility, reduces any image over 108 dpi to 72 dpi and doesn't include font. The eBook setting preset is used when the document may be printed and has slight compromises between sharpness of images and file size. It is set for Acrobat 4.0 compatibility, reduces any image over 225 dpi to 150 dpi and includes fonts. The Print setting is for documents which need to be printed with quality on a desktop printer. It is set for Acrobat 4.0 compatibility, reduces any image over 450 dpi to 300 dpi and includes fonts. The Fonts panel includes an Embed All Fonts check box that determines whether to include the fonts or not in a document. Including fonts increases the size of the file. If the reader has the fonts installed on their computer, Acrobat will use those fonts, therefore it's unnecessary to include them. If fonts are not included and they are not installed on the users computer, Acrobat will substitute it's own fonts. The formatting of the page remains remarkably consistent, but the appearance of the font may be different. After you've created a document without including the fonts, you can uncheck the Use local fonts command under the View menu to see what it looks like with the subsitution fonts. If it's important that the page look exactly the same or if using specialized cartography, mathematical or music fonts, the fonts can be embedded in the document. You can choose to Subset embedded font, where only those characters that are used in the document are included, which reduces file size but you then the document can't be edited with the text touch-up tool in the full version of acrobat. There is a list of fonts which are nearly universal or so closely match the Acrobat substitution fonts that are on a list which Acrobat will never embed. You can choose to add fonts to a list which Acrobat will always embed or never embed irrespective of the whether the Embed all fonts box has been checked. If you don't want to embed fonts at all, uncheck both Embed all fonts, and Subset embedded fonts.

The Press setting is for the highest quality commercial printing. It is set for Acrobat 4.0 compatibility, reduces any image over 450 dpi to 300 dpi but uses maximum quality compressin, includes fonts, and doesn't change color from the settings set in the application. When you change a setting, Acrobat prompts you to name and save it, after which it shows up in the presets. After you've set the properties of distiller and the options available in the application, click OK. A standard save dialogue box will appear. The original name of the document will appear, which you can change if you want. Click Save and the new Acrobat PDF document will appear wherever you indicated it should be saved.

Creating files and forms in Adobe Acrobat

Macintosh. In the Chooser, select Laserwriter 8 and any Postscript printer you have installed. Acrobat will use the Postscript Printer Description for that file. Some printer descriptions for Black and White printers will render color objects as grey scale, although some will generate a PDF with full color. If you don't have a Postscript printer, when you install Acrobat, a chooser extension called Adobe PS will be installed which you can select. If no real Postscript printers are available, it will select a "Virtual Printer"

Set the application parameters as you normally would. Some more advanced graphics programs allow you to select the PPD you want to emulate. Pull down the menu that starts with General and select Save as file (note you have to select File as the destination also, just changing the Save as file parameters won't send to document to a file.) Choose Acrobat PDF. You can choose whether to include fonts and whether to make them subsets. The menus at the bottom let you choose the compression scheme and maximum resolution for color, grey scale and black and white images separately.

Select the appropriate Page Setup in your application as though you were making a print. When you select Print, at the right top of the dialogue box for Destination, select File

Note, you can access all the advanced variations in the Windows version by selecting Save as Postscript file and then opening Distiller as a separate application. When you click Save, a standard file dialogue box will appear allowing you to name the file (if different from the original file name), Laserwriter 8 will process the file, launch D istiller and save the PDF file wherever you indicated it should be saved.

Creating files and forms in Adobe Acrobat

Print the Acrobatexamplewin.doc file to distiller.

Under Document menu, select Crop pages, check Remove White Margins, Page range all.

Open Adobe Acrobat and view the file. Zoom in to view fonts and object oriented graphic.They remain sharp at any magnification.

Under the View menu, select Full screen. Advance through pages with arrow keys. Escape key returns to normal viewing mode.

Compare file sizes with the original Word document.

Close.

Open Acrobatexamplewinnofonts.pdf. and compare.

Inserting, deleting, extracting and replacing pages in a PDF file

Under View menu deselect Use local fonts to see how it looks with substitution fonts. Compare file size with fonts included PDF and Word document.

Creating PDF's from Paper document. Scanning directly into Acrobat You can scan pages directly into Acrobat if your scanner came with a Photoshop plug-in (most do) Open scan to new PDF. note that it could be appended to a current document.

Open document you created from Acrobatexamplewin.doc. Under Document menu, select Insert pages. Select the document you printed through Distiller from 125dpi24bit.tif. Choose where in relation to original page you want it. (Note After means after this page, not after all pages. Under Document menu, Extract pages creates separate Acrobat file out of selected pages,

Look at handout examples of resolution on print and screen.

Delete pages deletes selected pages

If Image is grey scale or color or uses complicated graphics, use 125 dpi full color.

Replace pages, replaces selected pages.

If Image is only black and white with simple lines, use 300 dpi and Black and white (1 bit)

After all these manipulations it's OK to just save in Acrobat, since they have all been "distilled" already.

Opening an existing scan as an acrobat file Select Open, change files of type to All

Rearrange pages in Acrobat

Open 125dpi24bit.tif. This is exactly comparable to scanning into acrobat.

Click on Thumbnail tab. Click on thumbnail and drag to rearrange pages.

(Note, if you choose Open as Acrobat, if the file is an uncompressed bitmap like a TIFF or BMP, you can apply compression settings, but not downsampling with the Settings button) Under Document menu select Rotate Pages, then from menu 180 degrees. You can choose to limit this to only horizontal (landscape) or vertical (portrait) pages. Save in Acrobat. Print to Distiller with ebook settings. Compare file sizes. Close file.

Cropping pages in Acrobat Open acrobatppt.pdf Under Document menu Rotate pages Clockwise 90 degrees, Page range all.

Creating files and forms in Adobe Acrobat

Copying from Acrobat Select graphic selection tool Drag out selection area, include type and image, Copy

Select Column select text tool. You get the I beam with a rectangle cursor. Select an area like you would a graphic. Only the text in the selected area is selected as text

Text is searchable with the Find command under the Edit menu

Go back to Word, Paste special. Whatever you copy gets pasted in as a single image. Note: under file menu, all inserted images can be exported as TIFF, JPEG, or PNG files.

Select Text Select tool. Select some text..You get the I-Beam cursor, but all columns are selected when you try to select multiple lines.

With the Text touch up tool, text within an Acrobat file can be edited, but only within a single line. You would have to use copy and paste to move some text from one line to another. The Text touch up tool will only work if the entire font has been embedded in the document, or if you have the font installed on your computer.

Creating files and forms in Adobe Acrobat Links to other documents Select Link tool. Select an area. A dialogue box appears which includes several types of links including linking to other files or web sites. You can choose to have these links outlined or not. If you choose to not have them outlined (invisible rectangle) They are not indicated in any way except that the cursor turns into a hand with a pointing finger when you move over it. Links you have created in the original application will remain active and be indicated in the way they were in the original document. When you link to a website, you can choose to open it in Acrobat or Web Browser. If you open in Acrobat, it will convert the page to a PDF which you can save if using the full version of Acrobat.

Bookmarks Click Bookmarks tab Under Bookmark menu, select New Bookmark. It appears as Untitled. Double click on it and edit the name of the bookmark. Go to another page and click on that bookmark. It will return you to the top of that page. Choose Text select tool. Scroll down to “Creating forms”, select “Creating forms” and then New Book mark. Bookmark appears with selected text as it’s name. Go to another page. Click on Creating forms bookmark, Acrobat jumps to a page view where “Creating forms” is visible. Go to Scanned page. Choose the Graphic Select tool. Select area at bottom of page. Create New bookmark. It appears as untitled, because this isn't text, just a picture of the text. Edit the name of the bookmark. When you select the book mark from another page, it will take you to the area that was selected when you created the bookmark. Bookmarks return you to page magnification in which bookmark was created. To rearrange bookmarks, click on the bookmark and drag. If you drag the bookmark to the right of another bookmark icon, it will become nested under that bookmark. Plus and minus marks open and close nested

Creating files and forms in Adobe Acrobat

Creating Forms in Acrobat First you have to create the form in whatever application you are familiar with. Make sure the user will know where to fill in a text field. For short answers, you can use a line like on any form. For longer responses it might be better to put a box around it. You can add borders and check boxs as properties of a form field, so you don't have to draw these in your original document. Be careful on how you phrase instructions so the user knows what to do to fill in in onscreen and submit it on line if it's set up that way. Keep in mind that text fields are all rectangles and can't have a big indent. If you ask a short question, you can't have the text field begin on the line the question is on and then wrap to the beginning of the line below it.

Open coolnessscale.pdf In order to create form fields, select the Forms tool. The cursor will will change to a cross hair. In order to create a form field, click and drag the area you want the field to occupy . (The size is editable later) As soon as you let go of the mouse a dialogue box pops up for you to specify the properties of the field.

To the right of the name field is the Type field. The panels and options that appear in the rest of the dialogue box will change depending on the type of field it is.

If you enter something in the in the Short Description Box it will pop up as a note when the cursor is held for a second over the field.

Text fields Appearance.. You have a choice whether to have a border or fill (or not) and choose the width of the border or not.- Note: the default is thick. Use thin unless you want to emphasize a certain field.

You can choose the typeface and the size and color that text placed in a field appears in. The top of the menu includes faces that Acrobat considers universally available. If you choose any other typeface. It has to be embedded 100% or installed on the users computer in order to be displayed correctly. You can choose to make the field read only so the user can't change it and choose whether it is visible or not. For example you may have respondents categorized and you don't want them to be able to alter that. You may not want them to know how they are categorized so you might want the field hidden. Later we'll see that text files can be limited to numbers and the values of fields can be calculated. You may not want the user to see the result of the calculation. Note: in order for the contents of a hidden text field to be saved, it either has to be generated from calculations on other fields or set as the default value of that field (under options). If you create a visible field, go back to the browsing tool and fill it in, then go back to the forms tool and hide it, the text in the field will not be retained.

Creating files and forms in Adobe Acrobat Check box fields Check box fields are for lists where more than one option can be selected. Appearance Note that the default border is thick. Use thin. There are no options for different fonts since selecting a check box fills it with characters that can be selected under options. Options: You can choose the style of what appears (X, filled in, check mark) when the box is checked. You can give it a value. The default is yes, but could be other text, or a numerical value that could be calculated in another field.

Aligning fields

Options: You may wish to start with a standard value. The default value will appear in the field. In order to change it the user has to select the text and type over it. If you wish to have a hidden field with some contents, you have to enter it here. You can choose to left (most text) right (most numbers and some text columns) or center align the text the user enters. The normal behavior of a text field is for the text to scroll to the left as you exceed the size of the text field. There are no scroll bars. In order to review the text that has scroll out to the left of the field, the user must use the arrow keys. It will remain on one line no matter how big a text field you've created.

You can copy and past fields and change the name and value so they all are the same size. (If you don't change the name, they will behave like radio buttons, that is, you can only check one.) Under the View menu, you can choose to display a Grid. The layout grid can be modified with the Preferences...General command found under the Edit menu. You can zoom in for a more precise view also. You can select multiple fields and align them with the Forms command under the tools menu

Checking multiline, will wrap the text to the next line until the size of the field has been fill, then it will scroll off the top. The user can review using the arrow keys. If Do not scroll is checked (whether multiline is checked or not) the user will be limited to the width of the field (not multiline) or the width and height of the field (multiline is checked)

Radio Button fields Very similar to Check boxes except that they must all have the same name, but have different export values.

You can also limit the field to a specified number of characters (ID numbers, etc.)

Combo Boxes and List Boxes

Unless Do not spell check is checked, Acrobat will flag terms not in it's spelling dictionary (proper names) similiar to the way Office documents do, by drawing a wavy red line underneath them. The line doesn't appear until the field is deselected.

Allow the user to choose one of several options. Combo boxes appear as a pull down menu. In list boxes all the options are visible, but the user has to click on the appropriate choice which is then hightlighted.

Format You can limit the field to certain formats. If the user attempts to do something else, nothing appears in the field and Acrobat beeps (Use instructions and brief descriptions)

Note: you can't change a field from check box to list box without losing all the options.

Calculate You can do simple math with several fields. For example, the user could fill in the quantity field and that value could be multiplied by a read only price to yield a total field that automatically updated.

Signature fields Signature fields can potentially be used like any signature, but require some sophistication and understanding of the process by the user as well as other communication via email to verify the signature.

Creating files and forms in Adobe Acrobat Submitting forms With Acrobat Reader you can only print a filled in form. It cannot be saved. With the full version, the form can be saved. Form data can be submitted electronically, but this requires software residing on a server. At UW Oshkosh we have two methods–"mailto" and "write to" In both cases in order to submit the form the user must be using the full version of Acrobat, or version 4 or 5 of the reader as a browser plug-in. If using the standalone version of the reader, a submit button won't work. Just double clicking on a link on a web page will automatically launch the plug in if it's installed. If the form is supplied as a file (on a CD), most browsers will find the document with the Open command and launch the plug in. Of course, the computer must be connected to the internet in order to submit data.

Setting up a form that can submit data. Submit button field. Create a field and choose Button as type In the Options panel you can specify the text that appears on the button, such as "Click here to submit your information" or use a graphic icon you've created in another applicaton as a submit button.

Under Actions you have to click on the Add button, and then select Submit form. A button will appear to Select URL.

The URL should be that of the CGI on the server that will process that data. At UW Oshkosh. we have mailto.cgi which will send you the results in an email, or writeto.cgi which will write the data to a delimited text file which you have to get created for you by Academic Computing. In either case, HTML should be the Export Format.

Notice that you can select only specific fields to be returned. With the mailto and writeto CGI’s, even if you check Include empty fields, unchecked check boxes will not have values returned.

Creating files and forms in Adobe Acrobat

Instead of check boxes you could use yes/no pairs of radio buttons with no selected as the default. Unlike web forms, with these CGI’s, Acrobat does not necessarily return data in the order it appears on the form. Therefore it’s a good idea to number your fields, starting with 01. Acrobat Reader 5 will return the data in the correct order, Reader 4 returns it in what appears to be a random order (although consistent within any one form), and it’s fairly easy to sort the data back into the correct order if you’ve named the fields correctly. In either case you have to create a field named to which for the mailto.cgi must contain the email address you want the data sent to and the name of the file if using the writeto.cgi. These fields can be hidden, but remember, in order to save the contents of a hidden field, it must be filled in as the default value. For the mailto.cgi, you may wish to include a from field, which will appear as the sender and a subject field, which will appear as the subject. In order to submit data, the user has to be using version 4 or 5 of the full version of Acrobat, or version 4 or 5 of the Acrobat Reader as a browser plug-in. When the reader is installed, it is configured both as a browser plug-in and a stand alone application. If you access the form from a web page, Reader automatically launches as a browser plug-in. If you double click on a file on a disk or other storage device, the stand alone version will probably launch. Most browsers have an Open command that will open PDF files in a browser window. You may have to select all files in the files of type window. On a Macintosh, if you drag the file icon from the finder into a browser window, it will launch the plug-in. Of course the computer must be connected to the internet. When the user clicks the submit button, Acrobat displays what data was submitted, so if you’re using any hidden fields calculated from other field, you may want to encode the field name if you don’t want the user to know those results.

Saving forms If the user is using Acrobat Reader, they can only submit or print a filled in form. With version 5, a copy of the empty form can be saved to be filled in later. With the full version of Acrobat, the filled in form can be saved, including the report on what data was submitted..

Full color (24 bit) 125 dpi

Full color (24 bit) 72 dpi

Black and white (1 bit) 300 dpi

Some size comparisons Word document,1 page with photo image, screen shot and graphic Printed through Distiller with ebook settings, fonts included with ebook settings, fonts not included with screen settings, fonts included Word document, 3 pages no images Printed through Distiller with ebook settings, fonts not included with ebook settings, fonts included

148 K 204 K 116 K 172 K 84 K 20 K 104 K

Scanned image, 1 page, combination of pictures and text Full color (24 bit) scan at 125 dpi Saved in Acrobat Printed through Distiller with ebook settings, with screen settings Black and white (1 bit) scan at 300 dpi Saved in Acrobat Printed through Distiller with ebook settings, with screen settings

1.9 MB 152 K 72 K 448 K 420 K 420 K

Scanned image, 1 page, text only Black and white (1 bit) scan at 300 dpi Saved in Acrobat Printed through Distiller with ebook settings, with screen settings

68 K 60 K 60 K

When scanning pages for Acrobat, If the document includes only black text and black and white (line) art, scan at Black and White at 300dpi. If the document includes any pictures or grey scale graphics scan at Full color at 125 dpi.

1

Adobe Acrobat 5.0

Reducing the Size of Adobe PDF Files Although Adobe PDF files are generally smaller than their source documents, you may wish to reduce file size further. There are many reasons for wanting your Adobe PDF file to be as small as possible: you might want to e-mail the file to someone, fit it onto a floppy disk, or put in on a web server where a quick download is important. However, reducing file size can sometimes compromise quality or features. Your own priorities will determine to what degree you follow the suggestions below.

Screen Produces the smallest files. This option applies compression to graphics to make them suitable for on-screen display. As a result, a PDF created using this option may not produce suitable results when printed using an office printer. eBook Produces files that may be viewed on screen or

printed out. But a PDF created using this option produces a larger file. To reduce file size, you can choose not to embed fonts and to set a lower resolution for graphics than the screen Job Option. Press Retains the most information about graphics

Pre-conversion tips Whatever method you use to create an Adobe PDF file from a source document, the file will be processed by Acrobat Distiller. Basically, Acrobat Distiller converts your source document to a PostScript file, which it sends to a printer driver to “print” to a PDF file. For convenience, Acrobat Distiller comes with several predefined settings for creating Adobe PDF files, called “job options.” These settings are designed to balance file size with quality, depending on how the PDF file is to be used.

Choosing the proper job option Among other things, job options control how graphics are compressed, how much font information is embedded in the file, and whether the file is optimized for the Web. Become familiar with Distiller job options by launching Distiller and choosing Settings > Job Options and clicking through the job option tabs, as well as by referring to the chapter “Distiller Job Options” in Acrobat 5.0 online help.

and fonts and creates the largest PDF files. A PDF created with this job option is intended to be used by commercial printers for high-end, professional print purposes.

Customizing job options for smaller files Once you understand how the job options work, you can choose the best job option for your Adobe PDF file. You can further customize an existing job option to provide the best results for you. When you find the best settings for your purposes, save them as a new job option. This customized setting will then appear as one of the job option choices in the Distiller Job Options menu. Consider making the following changes to your Job Options file in order to reduce the file of the resulting PDF: General tab • Uncheck “Embed Thumbnails” • Check “Optimize for Fast Web View.” • If your document contains a vector object or an EPS

file with type, consider lowering the resolution. You can enter a value from 72 to 4000. Note: low-resolution setting can cause banding in gradients and change the positioning of objects slightly.

Help

ADOBE ACROBAT 5.0 2 Reducing the Size of Adobe PDF Files

Compression tab

To access Job Options in the Distiller Printer (Windows):

• Check “Compress Text and Line Art”

1 Click Start and choose Settings > Printers.

• If the file contains images, lower the dpi settings for

2 Right-click on the Acrobat Distiller printer icon and choose Properties (Windows 95, 98, ME) or Document Defaults (Windows NT 4.0) or Printing Preferences (Windows 2000).

whichever types of images are present in the document (Color, Grayscale and Monochrome) • Consider selecting “Minimum” for Quality.

Refer to “Applying Compression and Resampling to PDF Files” in the Acrobat Help Guide for more information. Fonts tab • Remove fonts from the “Always Embed” list, if any are

present. Fonts in the Always Embed list will be embedded in the PDF, even if the font is not used in the document. This can increase file size. • Embedding and Subsetting fonts can increase file

size. Consider whether or not it is necessary to Embed All Fonts or even a Subset of the fonts in your particular situation. If you will be sharing this PDF with someone who will already have the fonts used in the PDF installed on their system, embedding fonts might not be necessary,

Finding your Distiller driver The location of the Job Options or Conversion Settings depends on which method you are using to create a PDF file. On Windows, the Distiller application, Distiller Printer, and PDFMaker (Convert to Adobe PDF) all have different interfaces for choosing Job Options/Conversion Settings, and these settings operate independently from each other. For example, if you change the Job Options in the Distiller application, but then make your PDF by printing to Distiller Printer, your Job Options will not be applied. To access Job Options in the Distiller Application (Windows and Mac):

1 Launch the Distiller application. 2 Choose Settings > Job Options, or select a predefined Job Options file from the pop-up menu in the Acrobat Distiller application.

3 Select the Adobe PDF Settings tab to find the

Conversion Settings button. 4 Click the Edit Conversion Setting button and in the Job Options dialog you will see the various conversions settings grouped under tags identifying different categories of settings. To access Job Options in the PDFMaker macro (Windows, Microsoft Office only):

In Microsoft Word, Excel or Powerpoint choose Acrobat > Conversion Settings. The job options appear in the Conversion Settings drop down menu. To customize the job option that is displayed, click Edit Conversion Settings. Note: The Acrobat menu is displayed in Microsoft Office applications if PDFMaker 5.0 has been installed. Acrobat 5.0 automatically installs PDFMaker during installation of the full Acrobat application, provided the Microsoft Office application was installed on the same hard drive prior to installing Acrobat 5.0.

Post conversion file reduction If you no longer have access to the source file from which an Adobe PDF file was created, you will need the full version of Adobe Acrobat 5.0 in order to reduce the size of an existing Adobe PDF file. Acrobat Reader 5.0 is not able to create or modify PDF files.

Using Save As (instead of Save) If you have made changes to your PDF file in Acrobat 5.0, use Save As to reduce the file size. Using Save repeatedly during the process of working with a PDF file can cause the file size to increase, because during Save, changes are added to the end of the PDF file. Performing a Save As will linearize the PDF file. Linearizing a file is the process of removing saved changes from the end of the file, and moving them to the correct page.

Help

ADOBE ACROBAT 5.0 3 Reducing the Size of Adobe PDF Files

Unembedding Thumbnails

Using FDF (Forms Data Format)

Even though Acrobat automatically draws thumbnails when the thumbnails pane of a PDF file is opened, the creator of the PDF may have chosen to embed the thumbnails. Embedding thumbnails increases file size by approximately 3k per thumbnail. You can reduce the file size of a multipage PDF document by removing the embedded thumbnails without losing the convenience that thumbnails provide.

If your PDF file contains comments or form data, you can export them as an FDF file. This option is useful if the person who will be receiving your PDF has a copy of the original file and only needs the comments or form data. The data in the FDF file can be easily imported back into the PDF document. Exporting the comments or form data as an FDF greatly reduces the amount of data that needs to be sent. This can be especially useful when you are using e-mail to send comments back and forth, or to send data from a filled in form.

To remove Embedded Thumbnails, open the Thumbnails pane and open the Thumbnails palette menu. Choose “Remove Embedded Thumbnails.” and save using the Save as command. Note: Some older versions of Acrobat Reader, as well as the current version of Acrobat Reader for Pocket PC, do not automatically generate thumbnails. If you want thumbnails to be available for users viewing your PDF file on a handheld device, or using previous versions of Acrobat Reader, you will want to retain embedded thumbnails.

Optimizing for Fast Web View Optimizing your PDF files minimizes file size and facilitates page-at-a-time downloading. When you optimize a document, Acrobat removes any repeated images in it and replaces them with pointers to the first occurrences of those images. Even if your PDF is not going to be viewed on the Web, it is still a good idea to optimize your file to reduce file size. To optimize a file, choose Edit > Preferences > General. On the left panel of the Preferences dialog box, select Options from the list. On the right panel, check Save As Optimizes for Fast Web View. Now save using the Save As command. Note: For details on how to optimize a group of PDF files via a batch process, refer to the Acrobat Help section “Optimizing or creating Fast Web View files”.

Alternate strategies If after removing all unnecessary components and optimizing your PDF file is still too large, there are some other things you can do to reduce the file size even further.

For details on exporting comments and form data, see PDF Forms in Acrobat 5.0 Online Help.

Removing extra pages If the PDF file contains unneccessary pages that you wish to eliminate, you can do this easily with Acrobat. To remove pages, go to Document > Delete Pages. Select the page number of the page or pages you wish to remove. Save using the Save As command. (Save with a different name if you want to retain the original PDF.)

Splitting the document into smaller files If you are having trouble e-mailing a large PDF file, or fitting it onto removable media (such as a floppy disc), consider splitting the PDF file into two or more separate PDF files. Again, save using the Save As command (and save with a different name to retain the original). To split a document:

1 Choose Document > Extract Pages. 2 Select the numbers of the page or pages you wish to remove. 3 Use File > Save As to save your file. (It is recommended that you save the file with a different name than the original, so that your original PDF will be retained).

Note: The extracted pages will be saved to a new file in the same folder as the current PDF document, with the title “Pages from” and the name of the PDF file. You should change the name of the file to something more descriptive before extracting additional pages 4 Repeat steps 1 to 3 until all sections of the PDF have been saved into separate, smaller files.

Help

ADOBE ACROBAT 5.0 4 Reducing the Size of Adobe PDF Files

Removing Tags

To remove tags:

If you are creating a PDF file with PDFMaker (Windows, MS Office applications only), there is an option to Embed Tags in PDF (under the Acrobat menu > Change Conversion Settings > Office tab > Embed Tags in PDF). You can uncheck Embed Tags in PDF to reduce PDF file size. This will, however, compromise accessibility, reflow, and repurposing features.

1 Open the tags palette (Window > Tags)

PDF files created with Web Capture (File > Open Web Page) can also create tags if the Add PDF Tags checkbox is selected under Conversion Settings. Unchecking this checkbox when converting a Web page to PDF will reduce PDF file size removing the tagged structural information about the document.

2 Click the + (plus) sign next to Tags Root to expand the document structure. 3 Select the tag right beneath Tags Root, and delete it. 4 Save the file with a different name than the tagged file, retaining the structural information in the original document.

Note: For more information on Tagged PDF, refer to the Acrobat Help section “Repurposing Adobe PDF Documents”.

Once a document has been created as a Tagged PDF, you can remove the tags from the Tags palette, and reduce the size of the PDF file. Again, only do this if you are certain that accessibility, reflow, or the need to repurpose the contents of the document are not a requirement.

Help

ADOBE ACROBAT 5.0 1 Converting Adobe® PDF documents to other formats

Adobe Acrobat 5.0

Converting Adobe PDF documents to other formats ®

With Adobe Acrobat® 5.0, you can easily convert the contents of an Adobe PDF document for use in other applications. Tagged Adobe PDF documents in particular allow you to save your document to other formats, such as Rich Text Format (RTF), reflow your file’s contents into different-sized devices, such as an eBook reading device, and make your document’s contents accessible to the motion and vision challenged through the use of a screen reader for Windows®.

To capture Image Only files and convert to searchable text in Windows:

1 In Acrobat 5.0, choose Tools > Paper Capture. 2 Specify the pages you want to capture, and then click OK. To capture Image Only files and convert to searchable text in Mac OS:

1 In Acrobat 5.0, choose Tools > Paper Capture Online. 2 Follow the on-screen instructions.

Determining if your PDF document contains text Before you convert a PDF document, you need to determine if the PDF document is an Image Only PDF document. An Image Only PDF document is one that has been scanned using a flatbed scanner—it contains no actual text, only a picture of the text. Image Only files cannot be converted directly to other formats. To determine if your PDF document contains text:

Open the PDF document in Acrobat 5.0 and do one of the following: • Choose File > Document Properties > Fonts, and

click List All Fonts. If no fonts are listed in the Document Fonts dialog box, then the PDF document contains no text. • Select the text select tool

and drag across the text to try to highlight it. If the text will not highlight, your PDF document does not contain real text.

For detailed information about the Paper Capture plug-in, see “Capturing pages to convert to searchable text” in Acrobat 5.0 online Help. You can also capture pages using Adobe Acrobat Capture®. See the Adobe Web site for more information.

Converting Adobe PDF documents to other formats You can convert PDF documents to other formats, such as RTF, and reuse your document’s contents in other applications. For example once you convert a PDF document to RTF, you can open the RTF file in a wordprocessing application such as Microsoft® Word. Note: For the best format output in RTF, it is recommended that your PDF document be both structured and tagged. See, “About structured and tagged Adobe PDF documents” on page 2. To convert a PDF document to another format:

Converting Image Only files to searchable text

1 Choose File > Save As.

If your PDF document is an Image Only PDF document, use the Acrobat Paper Capture plug-in to “capture” the pages in the file and convert to text, which allow you to search, edit, and copy the text.

2 Enter a filename, specify a location for the new file, and choose a file type from the Save as Type pop-up menu (Windows) or Format pop-up menu (Mac OS). 3 Click Save.

Note: If you do not have the Acrobat Paper Capture plugin installed, you can download it from the Adobe Web site.

Tutorial

ADOBE ACROBAT 5.0 2 Converting Adobe® PDF documents to other formats

Opening converted PDF documents Once you’ve converted the PDF document to another format, you can easily open it in another application that supports the file type you created. To open a converted PDF document in another application:

1 Open the application, and choose File > Open. 2 Locate the converted file, and click Open.

Note: If you do not see the file listed in the Open dialog box, make sure that you are able to view all file types. If the text in the new file comes out as gibberish (e.g., lines, boxes, or random letters, numbers and symbols), this is an encoding problem and the application you are trying to open the file with may not support the file type.

Structured PDF documents Structured PDF

documents recognize paragraphs and basic text formatting, but not lists or tables. You can’t reflow the text from structured PDF documents onto smaller screens, such as those on a Palm or Windows CE device. Structured PDF documents can be accessed using a screen reader for Windows, but without the reliability of tagged PDF documents. Tagged PDF documents Tagged PDF documents

include the recognition of paragraphs, basic text formatting, lists, and tables. You can reflow tagged PDF documents so that they are readable on smaller screens, such as those on a Palm or Windows CE device. Tagged PDF documents have been optimized for accessibility, so they can be accessed reliably using a screen reader for Windows.

To resolve encoding problem: To determine if a PDF document is tagged:

Do one of the following: • Save the PDF document as a different file type. • Open the converted file in an application that

supports the file type that you created.

1 Open the PDF file in Acrobat 5.0. 2 Choose File > Document Properties > Summary.

Tagged PDF information is displayed in the bottom right corner of the Document Summary dialog box.

About structured and tagged Adobe PDF documents There are three types of Adobe PDF documents: unstructured, structured, and tagged. These file types differ in what they contain and how their contents can be used. The more structured information the PDF document contains, the more options you have for reusing its contents. For more information, see “About the different types of Adobe PDF documents” in the Acrobat 5.0 online Help. Unstructured PDF documents An unstructured PDF

document recognizes paragraphs, but not basic text formatting, lists, or tables. You can’t reflow the text from unstructured PDF documents onto smaller screens, such as those on a Palm OS® or Windows CE® device. Unstructured PDF documents aren’t reliably accessible using a screen reader for Windows.

Creating structured Adobe PDF documents You can create structured PDF documents in some authoring applications, including Adobe FrameMaker® 6.0 or Adobe PageMaker®7.0. For example, in FrameMaker, you can create a structured PDF document using the Save As command, or by printing your document to PostScript®, and then converting it to PDF using Acrobat Distiller®. You can also use the Convert to Adobe PDF macro in Microsoft Word to add structure to a PDF document. For more information on creating PDF documents, see the documentation that came with your application. Note: Once you have created a structured PDF file, open the file in Acrobat 5.0, and then choose Document > Make Accessible to add tags.

Tutorial

ADOBE ACROBAT 5.0 3 Converting Adobe® PDF documents to other formats

Creating tagged Adobe PDF documents When you tag a PDF document the structural information of the file is embedded into the PDF, which allows better viewing when reflowed, or read by a screen reader. Note: Tagging a PDF document will significantly increase the file size. To create a tagged PDF document using Microsoft Office 2000 or Microsoft Office XP in Windows:

1 Choose Acrobat > Change Conversion Settings. 2 Select the Office tab, select Embed Tags in PDF, and

then click OK. 3 Do one of the following:

(such as headings) when opened in another application; however, the application may not recognize the headings. For example, if you tag an unstructured PDF document, convert it to an RTF file, and open it in Microsoft Word, the headings in your file may not correspond with the headings in Microsoft Word. What would be a Heading 1 in the PDF document is Normal in Microsoft Word. • Some elements in the file (such as paragraph

alignment and bullet spacing) may be ignored only because this type of structure isn’t recognized in the tags. To create a tagged PDF document directly from one or more Web pages using Acrobat 5.0 in Windows or Mac OS:

• Choose Acrobat > Convert to Adobe PDF. • Click the Convert to Adobe PDF button

• The file will maintain some of its basic structure

.

To create a tagged PDF document using Acrobat 5.0 in Windows:

1 Choose Document > Make Accessible. The Make

Accessible plug-in will analyze your file and place the appropriate tags based on its analysis. Note: If you do not have the Make Accessible plug-in installed on your computer, you can download it from the Adobe Web site. 2 Choose File > Save.

There are some limitations to using the Make Accessible plug-in:

1 Do one of the following: • Choose File > Open Web Page. • Select the Open Web Page button

.

2 Type the URL or click Browse to locate the Web page. 3 Click Conversion Settings, and then select Add PDF Tags. 4 Click OK, and then click Download.

For more information about the Open Web Page command, see “Converting Web pages by specifying a URL” in the Acrobat 5.0 online Help. Note: When working in a Mac OS environment, you cannot tag other types of PDF documents, only Web pages.

• Tagging an unstructured file may not tag the file

elements 100% correctly, particularly with complex formats. Remember that Acrobat is trying to tag the file as logically as possible.

Adobe, the Adobe logo, and Acrobat are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. Windows is either a registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Macintosh is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the United States and other countries. Palm OS is a registered trademark of Palm, Inc. ©2002 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.