Adobe Acrobat 5.0 and PDF

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What is PDF and what can it do?

  • PDF stands for Portable Document Format. It allows people to view, search and print documents exactly as the user intended, whether they have the software and/or fonts used to create it or not.

  • Adobe Acrobat software allows you to save documents in PDF format.

  • To view a PDF document, only the Acrobat Reader (a free download) is required. Many users already have this reader on their computer as it comes in packages with other software applications as well as with newer Internet browser versions.

  • With Acrobat you can configure forms that can be filled out and printed. Using the full version of the Acrobat program, users can fill out, print and/or save forms. Users with the free Reader version can only fill out and print.

What do people use Adobe Acrobat for?

  • Putting worksheets, manuals, frameworks, etc. online that would lose considerable formatting or take lots of formatting work to convert to Web page format. Web users can read and print these documents with their perfect formatting, including graphics.

  • Sending attachments via e-mail to users who may or may not have access to the same fonts and/or software used to create the original documents.

  • Scanning paper documents.

How do you create a PDF document?

The following instructions assume that Adobe Acrobat 5.0 is installed on your computer, not just the Acrobat Reader.

Microsoft Office applications like Word, Excel and PowerPoint allow you to directly save Acrobat documents with one click. If you have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer, you will see an extra menu in these applications on the far right.

  • From the Acrobat menu, select Convert to Adobe PDF.

  • You will be prompted for a filename and can navigate to where you want to save the document. You can save into any folder on your computer or to network servers.

  • You will then have a document with a .pdf filename ending.

  • This file can be sent as an e-mail attachment or can be placed online.

Navigation Tools

Add Navigation tools at the last stage of document development.

Thumbnails

Create a thumbnail to aid in the user’s navigation of your document. Thumbnails can be created from an Acrobat Distiller option, or they can be added after the PDF has been created.

  • To create thumbnails, click on the navigation pane to reveal the Thumbnails palette.

  • Choose Create All Thumbnails from the Thumbnails palette menu to create thumbnails for all document pages.

Bookmarks

Use electronic bookmarks to mark magnified views of pages, allowing you and your reader to jump directly to graphics or other special areas of a document. Bookmarks are also a good way to direct your reader's attention to another PDF document, a non-PDF document, or a Web page. They can also perform actions such as executing a menu item, playing a movie or sound, or submitting a form.

  1. Display the Bookmarks palette. In Acrobat, click the Show/Hide Navigation Pane button in the File toolbar to display the navigation pane. When bookmarks are displayed, they appear in the Bookmarks palette, which is docked in the navigation pane.

  2. Click the Bookmarks tab to bring the Bookmarks palette to the front.

  3. Select text for the bookmark's title.

One way to begin creating a bookmark is to select text in your document that you will want to use as the bookmark's title. This method can save you time and reduce spelling errors.

  1. Select the Text select tool in the tool bar.

  2. Move the I-beam into the page, and drag to highlight the text for the bookmark's title. If you have trouble highlighting the text, hold down Ctrl, and drag a marquee around it.

Create the bookmark

  1. Click the triangle in the upper right corner of the Bookmarks palette.

  2. From the Bookmarks palette menu, and choose New Bookmark.

A new bookmark appears with the highlighted text as its title. By default, the new bookmark links to the current page view displayed on your screen. Click in the blank space beneath the bookmark to deselect the bookmark text.

You can also create a bookmark by pressing Ctrl+B.

To create a bookmark that links to a magnified view of a page

  1.  From the Bookmarks palette menu select New Bookmark.

A new untitled bookmark appears below the last bookmark you created.

  1. Type the new bookmark's title, and then deselect the bookmark text.

  2. Set the bookmark's destination.

  3. Select the bookmark you've just created.

  4. Go to the page that you want to be the bookmark's destination.

  5. Select the zoom-in tool, and drag a marquee around an area of the page that you want to magnify.

  6. Choose Set Bookmark

  7. Destination from the Bookmarks palette menu to reset the destination to the view currently displayed on-screen, and click Yes.

Note: You can also set the bookmark's destination using the Bookmark Properties dialog box, which provides you with a menu of preset magnifications. With your bookmark selected, choose Bookmark Properties from the Bookmarks palette menu. In the dialog box that appears, choose an Action Type, click Edit Destination, choose a Magnification, and click Set Action.

Linking

You can enhance your PDF pages with links to the World Wide Web or to other PDF documents.

  1. Select the page element you want to make into a link.

  2. Select the Link tool , and drag to create a marquee around the element.

The Create Link dialog box is displayed.

Set the look of your link

  1. Under Appearance in the Create Link dialog box.

Specify the:
Type
Width
Colour
and Style of your link

Assign a URL to the link

  1. Under Action, for Type select World Wide Web link.

  2. Click Edit URL.

  3. Enter the URL of a Web site or Web page you want the link to point to.

  4. Click OK.

  5. Click Set Link.

Select a Web browser to display your link

  1. If you have a Web browser and access to the World Wide Web, you can try out your link by opening your file in your browser.

Test the link

  1. Select the Hand Tool, and click your link to test it.

  2. Clicking the link will open the Web site you linked to in the browser you specified. You've created a link to the World Wide Web in an Adobe Acrobat file.

Edit the link

  1. Clicking on the Create Link tool.

  2. Double click on the linked text or image.

Enabling Web Links

  1. Select from the Tools menu, Locate Web Addresses, Create Web Links from URLs in Text to have Acrobat create hypertext links out of URLs in the document.

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