Some forms are fancy—period. There’s little chance that Acrobat 9, regardless of its intelligence level, can identify and build form fields on a page that uses a lot of graphic content, or one in which it’s difficult to make out what might be the fields.

Visually complex forms are generally made in a layout or imaging program, but you don’t have to start from scratch or add the fields manually. Here’s how to combine an interesting form (built in Adobe InDesign) with the power of the form-field recognition process in Acrobat to add fields:

1. In your source program, configure the layers so the field labels and their structures are on one layer, and export two versions of the form:
   • Export the form layer as PDF to use for placing the fields.
   • Export the entire publication as PDF to replace the single-layer form after fields are added.
2. In Acrobat, choose Forms > Start Form Wizard to open the Create or Edit Form dialog box. Leave the default selection “An existing electronic document” (Windows) or “Start with a PDF document” (Mac) and click Next.
3. Locate and select the PDF containing the form layer, and then click Next. Acrobat processes the file, and the results are shown in the Form Edit mode

1. Modify the fields as required. In the example in Figure 1, which uses five text fields and one checkbox, only the checkbox was inserted manually.
2. Save the file, and close the Form Editing mode window.
3. Choose Document > Replace Pages to open the Select File with New Pages dialog box. Locate and select the full version of the form. Click OK. Click OK again in the subsequent Replace Pages dialog box.

The full form structure replaces the simplified form structure without affecting the fields

Is all this effort worth the time? Good question. A few factors are involved, but as a general principle, yes. Whether to use two versions of the form must be based on its overall complexity. Unless you’re confident that the form’s appearance will wreak havoc on the recognition process, it may not be worth the time involved to export two versions from your source program. In the example, Acrobat assigned over a dozen form fields to the full form layout, only two of which were actually the correct fields in the right locations.

Your choice is also based on how quick you are. If you’re a whiz in your source program and not so fast in Acrobat, making the extra version may take far less time than fixing fields. The inverse scenario also applies.

Suppose you want to combine a couple of pages from one document, a table from another, and a block of text from another. You could go to the source documents and programs and rebuild the content, import different formats from document to document, and export a PDF file. Or you could try combining the content in Acrobat, which is often the more efficient approach.

Use the Select tool (located on the Select & Zoom toolbar) to select text, images, and tables, and to perform object-specific actions available from the tool’s pop-up menu of options. Select is an intelligent tool that behaves differently depending on what you’re selecting on a document. The more you click, the more you select:

• Double-click a word to select it.
• Triple-click to select a line of text.
• Quadruple-click to select all the text on a page.
• Press Shift and the left-arrow key or right-arrow key to add text one letter at a time.
• Press Shift-Ctrl (Mac: Shift-Command) and the right-arrow key to add text one word at a time.

1. Click the Select tool on the Select & Zoom toolbar and then click-and-drag over some of the text you want to select. The text is highlighted in the document.
2. Hold the pointer over the selected text for a couple of seconds until the Select Text icon appears. Right-click (Mac: Control-click) to display the context menu, listing options that you can choose depending on the content selected.

If you hover the pointer over a table, the Select Text icon appears. Right-click (Mac: Control-click) to open the shortcut menu. The table-specific options include the following.

• Copy As Table. As its name indicates, this option allows you to copy the table to the clipboard. Open the document into which you want to paste the table, and choose Edit > Paste.
• Save As Table. Name the table in the Save As dialog box that appears when this option is selected, and choose a format.
• Open Table in Spreadsheet. When this option is selected, your spreadsheet application (such as Microsoft Excel) opens and displays the imported table in a new worksheet.

In both Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel, the tables taken from the PDF document are editable and ready to use.

Use the 3D Measurement Tool in Adobe Acrobat 9 to measure 3D models. You can create measurements between combinations of points or edges, by moving the pointer over the 3D model, or by highlighting specific points and edges. The 3D Measurement Tool supports four types of measurements:

• Perpendicular distance between two straight edges
• Linear distance between two points
• Radius of circular edges
• Angle between two edges (or three points)

You can associate 3D measurements with specific views. If the default view is active when a measurement is added, a new measurement view is created. This view is added to the view hierarchy in the Model Tree. The measurement is associated with that view only, and is displayed as a child of the view.

You can also display comments while taking measurements. These comments (also called measurement markups) are preserved after the document is closed.

Follow these steps to measure and annotate an object in your 3D model:

1. Click the model on the page to activate it and display the 3D toolbar.
2. Click the 3D Measurement Tool on the toolbar. Another palette of tools opens in the document pane, offering a variety of snap and measurement options

1. Add measurements to the model as desired. To measure distance, click to establish a starting point, move the pointer to an edge or other area of the model, and click again to measure the distance.

   TIP

   You can add a text label to the default measurement. With the measurement still selected, right-click anywhere on the model background and choose Change Markup Label. In the pop-up field that appears, type the text you want to display, and then click OK. The field closes, and your label includes the text and the measurement.

2. After you’ve set the endpoint for the measurement, click again and drag to set the location for the measurement’s label.
3. To stop a measuring process, right-click and choose Cancel Measurement, or press Esc. If you finish a markup and want to remove it, click it with the 3D Measurement Tool and press Delete.

   NOTE

   If you want to check on some feature’s dimensions, disable the measurement markup. That way, the measurement is visible only as long as it’s active. If you change to another tool or start another measurement, the temporary markup disappears.

Keyboard Shortcuts for Moving and Measuring

You’ll often need to move around a model as you’re measuring. Keep these keyboard shortcuts in mind:

• Press Alt to rotate the view.
• Press Shift to pan the view.
• Press Alt-Shift to zoom the view.
• Press Ctrl to disable the snap feature.

Converting 3D Measurements to Comments

Unlike with the other forms of commenting, you convert measurements to comments in the Model Tree pane. Right-click the plus sign (+) for the measurement view you want; its list of measurements opens. Right-click the measurement to display the shortcut menu, and choose Convert to Comment.

If you decide to convert the measurement to a comment as you’re measuring your drawing, select the Hand tool, right-click the measurement, and choose Convert to Comment from the shortcut menu.

If you distribute your form from Adobe Acrobat 9, data from your returned forms is compiled in a PDF portfolio, created as part of the distribution process. As the data starts to flow in, use the PDF portfolio feature to sort or filter the returns, edit data in-line, and add more data as additional returns are received. To open your returns file, you can do the following:

• Choose Track Forms from the Forms task button’s menu.
• Choose File > Open to locate and select the PDF returns file.
• Click View Responses on the Tracker. The responses PDF portfolio opens with a welcome page, explaining the tasks you can complete in the file. Click Get Started to close the Welcome window and open the PDF portfolio, shown in Home mode view as a table listing the fields from your form and returned responses

You can perform several maintenance and management tasks with your form returns:

• Update returns. Click Update to have Acrobat look for new responses online and include them in the portfolio returns, or show a message saying that there are no new responses.
• Filter the returns. Click Filter to show a list of your form’s field names. Click the field name you want to use for filtering, such as Radio Button1 (used in the example form for the recipients to state whether they were attending an event). Choose a condition from a pop-up menu, such as contains (in the example), does not contain, is blank, and so on. Finally, type the condition in the field, such as No. The returns are filtered and your results displayed. When you’re done, click Clear All to remove the filter; click Done to return to the full Home mode view.

• Archive responses. Click Archive to move responses into an archive file for storage. You can select rows in the responses and choose Archive Selected from the Archive pop-up menu, or archive all your responses.

  NOTE

  Who Needs an Archive?

  You might want to use an archive file if you use the same form on an ongoing basis, such as for customer experience forms. Create a new response file, filter the results (based on a date range, for example), and send them to the Archive folder for safekeeping. That way, your portfolio shows only the latest returns, and makes it easier to find a particular response or range of responses.

• Add more returns. Click Add to open the Add Returned Forms dialog box, where you can manually locate and select files to add to the PDF portfolio’s list of returns. Once you’ve located and selected the returns, click OK to close the dialog box and include the new returns.
• Export results. Click Export to export the results in a CSV (comma-separated value) format for use in a spreadsheet. You can select rows in the responses and choose Export Selected from the Export pop-up menu, or export all your responses. The Select Folder to Save File dialog box opens. Locate and select the folder; then choose the export format (XML or CSV). Click Save to export the data and close the dialog box. The file is now available for use in a spreadsheet or database
  Export the data to a spreadsheet to use for calculations such as number of attendees.

• Delete results. If you have a results-processing plan in place, such as forwarding comments to a salesperson, you can delete the results when you’re done with them, to decrease the volume of returns you have to manage.

Adding Email Form Returns

Sometimes a recipient of your form may attach the form to an email message to return to you. You can easily add those returns to your other returns in your PDF portfolio by using program commands. Follow these steps:

1. Choose Forms > Compile Returned Forms to open a dialog box. Click Browse to locate and select the response file.
2. Click Add File.
3. Repeat as necessary until you’ve selected all the returns.
4. Click OK to close the dialog box and add the return data to your PDF portfolio.

Say you have an Acrobat document made up of several pages—some containing layers, some containing maps with georeferenced locations, and still others containing content with headings that you want to hyperlink with bookmarks. You can make that document easier to use by navigating from one pane only—the Layers pane.

Acrobat lets you attach bookmarks to layers, which you can use in various ways. For example, you can distribute the same information using different languages without having to provide documents in different languages, or you can show customers samples in different colors in the same document. Use bookmarks in conjunction with layers to give readers control over what they see and print. Use actions to extend the function of a bookmark beyond just pointing to a location in your document.

Bookmarking a Layered Document

The process of adding a bookmark to a drawing or map is the same as for adding a basic bookmark—that is, add and name the bookmark, display the correct view, and set the destination. The process for bookmarking a layered document requires more document manipulation.

Follow these steps to bookmark a layered document:

Open the Bookmarks pane and add default bookmarks corresponding to the layers you want to link  At this point, if you click any bookmark, it displays the same location on the same page.

1. Select the first-layer bookmark and name it. (To minimize confusion, sometimes it’s easier to name the bookmarks and arrange them in the same order as the layers listed in the Layers pane.)

   NOTE

   You don’t attach a link to a specific layer in a PDF file. Instead, the link basically “floats,” remaining on top of whatever layer or layer group is visible. However, if you add and configure a link, you can specify the layers that are shown or hidden.

2. In the Layers pane, toggle off the visibility for all layers except the one associated with the first bookmark.
3. In the Bookmarks pane, right-click (Mac: Control-click) the bookmark to open the shortcut menu. Choose Properties to open the Bookmark Properties dialog box, and then select the Actions tab.
4. From the Select Action pop-up menu, select Set Layer Visibility and then click Add. The action automatically appears in the Actions section at the bottom of the dialog box.

1. A notification dialog box opens to tell you that the target layer state of the selected actions will be set to the current state. In other words, set the destination layer you want to see as a result of clicking a bookmark, and leave the rest hidden. Click OK. The action is added to the Actions list.
2. Repeat these steps with the other layers. Be sure to hide all layers except the one you are attaching to the bookmark.

A page scanned in older versions of Acrobat, or one created from a photo or drawing, is only an image of a page, and you can’t manipulate its content by extracting images or modifying the text. However, Acrobat can convert the image of the document into actual text or add a text layer to the document by using optical character recognition (OCR).

Basic Conversion

To capture the content of an image document, follow these steps:

1. Choose Document > OCR Text Recognition > Recognize Text Using OCR. The Recognize Text dialog box opens. Specify whether you want to capture the current page, an entire document, or specified pages in a multipage document.
2. Click the Edit button to open the Recognize Text – Settings dialog box. Choose one of three options in the PDF Output Style pop-up menu:
   • Searchable Image compresses the foreground and places the searchable text behind the image. Note that compressing affects the image quality.
   • Searchable Image (Exact) keeps the foreground of the page intact and places the searchable text behind the image.
   • ClearScan rebuilds the page, converting the content into text, fonts, and graphics.
3. If you selected either the Searchable Image or the ClearScan OCR choice, choose one of four options from the Downsample Images pop-up menu—anywhere from 600 dpi down to 72 dpi. (Downsampling reduces file size, but also can result in unusable images.) Click OK to return to the Recognize Text dialog box.
4. Click OK to start the capture process. Be patient. Depending on the size and complexity of the document, the process can take a minute or two. When the process is complete, the dialog box closes and the results of the conversion are shown in the document.
   The point of OCR is to produce searchable text in your document. OCR isn’t foolproof, and you’re going to have some errors, even though Acrobat doesn’t recognize them as such. (See the next section for details on handling suspect content.)

To touch up a word or line of text in an Acrobat document, simply use the TouchUp Text tool in Acrobat. Here’s how:

1. Right-click (Mac: Control-click) the toolbar well and choose Advanced Editing to open the Advanced Editing toolbar.
2. Select the TouchUp Text tool from the Advanced Editing toolbar and click the tool within the text you want to edit. The paragraph is surrounded by a bounding box.
3. Drag the I-beam pointer to select all or part of the paragraph, or position the I-beam within the text you want to edit

1. Type the replacement text or add new text at the position of the I-beam pointer. Click outside the highlighted area to deselect the text.

You can modify properties of new text as well as text already in the document, including the following:

• Font and font size
• Fill and stroke options
• Font embedding and subsetting
• Spacing between words and characters
• Baseline adjustments

Follow these steps:

1. With the TouchUp Text tool, first click the row of text or select the words or characters you want to edit.
2. Right-click (Mac: Control-click) the text to open the shortcut menu. Choose Properties. The TouchUp Properties dialog box opens

1. Choose a font from the Font drop-down list. Adjust other text attributes as desired and as the font’s attributes allow. As you make adjustments, the changes are previewed automatically in the selected text.
2. Click Close to apply the settings.

Tips for Tranquil Text Tweaking

Keep these notes in mind when touching up text:

• If you need to select an entire paragraph, use the shortcut key combination Ctrl-A (Mac: Command-A).
• To add new text, with the TouchUp Text tool active, Ctrl-click (Mac: Option-click) within the document where you want to add the text. The New Text Font dialog box opens with the default options set (Arial text and horizontal writing mode). Select the font and writing mode you want, and click OK. The default text “New Text” appears on the page. Select it, and then type the new text. Click outside the new line of text to finish the process.
• Only fonts with a vertical writing mode will write vertically. An error message means that you’ve selected a horizontal-only font.
• If the text isn’t behaving as text, maybe it isn’t actually text. Scanned text that hasn’t been captured behaves like an image.
• If you add text and it won’t wrap to the next line, choose Edit > Preferences > TouchUp (Mac: Acrobat > Preferences > TouchUp) and select the Enable Text Word Wrapping checkbox.

Acrobat 9 Pro Extended (Windows) offers two new features for dealing with georeferenced maps (maps that have longitude/latitude, coordinate systems, and other mapping data embedded in them). As you’ll see in this technique, you can mark geographic locations, search for a map location, and add georeferenced measurement markups. You can open a PDF map in Acrobat 9 Pro Extended and add geospatial referencing data to it—read how in the sidebar “Building a PDF Map.”

Marking a Map

To add a point of interest on a georeferenced map, follow these steps:

1. Select the Geospatial Location tool on the Analysis toolbar. The mouse pointer changes to display crosshairs.

   TIP

   If you don’t see crosshairs, the map you’re using hasn’t been georeferenced, and you won’t be able to identify or mark locations as described in these steps.

2. Move the cursor over the map, using the Latitude and Longitude values shown in the Info widget at the bottom of the document window to help pinpoint a location.
3. Right-click the tool at the point of interest to open the shortcut menu. Choose Mark Location. A Sticky Note comment is added at the map location you click, and the latitude and longitude values are automatically added to the comment.

The Compare feature in Acrobat 9 has come a long way from its earlier versions. In Acrobat 9, differences between two versions of a document are highlighted and commented.

Compare shows differences in text and images based on three different document structures programmed into the feature. To do a comparison, follow these steps:

1. Choose Document > Compare Documents to open the Compare Documents dialog box.
2. Click Choose for each of the Compare (older document) and To (newer document) fields, and locate and select the files you want to use. Click the Document pop-up menu to choose any open files for either document option.
3. For both documents, type a page number in the First Page and Last Page fields to change the comparisons (if necessary). The fields list the page numbers for the first and last pages of the documents automatically.
4. Select a Document Description option (read about the options in the sidebar “Matching Descriptions”).
5. Click OK to close the dialog box and compare the files. Acrobat processes the files and generates a list of the changes. The contents are displayed in the Compare navigation pane, new in Acrobat 9
   Save the file for future reference.

There are several tasks you can take on in the Compare feature:

• Another page is added before the document pages that lists the names of the files, whether differences were found, and a key to the report. You can click links on this Summary page to view either the newer or older document, as well as show the first change in the report.
• Click a page thumbnail to show that page in the Document pane.

• Choose Show Color Legend to display the colors used for different types of comparisons as an overlay in the Document pane.
• To show each of the documents in its own window, choose Options > Show Documents Tiled or Options > Show Documents Side by Side.
• To synchronize the pages while showing both documents in their own windows, choose Options > Synchronize Pages.
• To change the size of the page thumbnails, choose Options > Thumbnail Size and select the desired setting.
• Drag the splitter bar at the bottom of the Compare pane upward to show thumbnails of the old document’s pages. Click a thumbnail to open the page in a new window.

Customizing the Comparison

The new Compare tools in Acrobat 9 offer a lot of customization. If you want to personalize the layout, click Show Options in the Compare pane to toggle the choices. You can choose among the following options:

• Specify types of changes to show, such as text, images, formatting, and backgrounds.
• Select a color scheme to use for displaying the report.
• Drag an Opacity slider to set how transparent/opaque the overlying comments are.

Once you’ve made your choices, click Hide Options to toggle the options closed. Your choices can be viewed in the Compare pane’s Options menu.

Adobe Presenter publications show a presentation running inside a customizable interface called a theme. You can customize features such as color, tab display, graphics, fonts, and interface functionality. Once you’ve chosen, customized, or created a theme, you can save it for reuse with other presentations. Adobe Presenter uses a default green-colored presentation theme named Sage, but you can alter it.

Open your presentation in PowerPoint. Choose Adobe Presenter > Presentation Settings. Click Theme Editor to open the dialog box.

1. From the Theme drop-down list, choose a theme to start customizing. The new theme appears in the preview window.
2. Change Appearance options as desired:
   • Click the color swatches for various interface elements to open color pickers and choose custom or branding colors.
   • Click Modify Text Labels to change the text in different areas of the theme, such as the field names in the Search tab or the label assigned to a quiz score. (Note that you can’t change the column headings “Slide Title” and “Duration” in the Outline pane.)

   TIP

   Need to distribute your presentation to colleagues in Germany? Japan? No problem. The text labels in the presentation automatically display in German, French, Japanese, or Korean if the viewer’s operating system is set for one of those languages. You can choose from several other languages, including Chinese or Dutch, in the Player Text Labels dialog box, which opens when you click the Modify Text Labels button.

   • Click Background Image > Change to open a dialog box in which you can specify a JPEG image to use as the background behind the slides, playbar, and toolbar.
   • Choose a font and size for the presentation notes by using the Notes Pane Font and Size drop-down lists.
3. To select Customize options, choose among the following settings:
   • To offer users optional presentation sizes, click the Enable Mode Switching checkbox and select either Default or Fullscreen from the Display drop-down list.
   • To specify a location for the sidebar, select Show Sidebar. Click the Location down arrow and choose Right or Left.
   • To customize the content shown at the upper right of the sidebar, select/deselect appropriate Presenter Info options.
   • Select/deselect panes to show in the presentation. In the Default list, choose the pane to display as the default.
4. When you’re finished specifying the desired settings, click Save As and type a name for your custom theme in the resulting dialog box. Click OK to save the theme and include it in the Theme list for future use.

1. Click OK to close the Theme Editor and return to the Presentation Settings dialog box. Notice that the theme you’ve customized is now shown in the Themes area of the dialog box, and the label displays “My Current Theme.” Click OK to dismiss the dialog box and return to your project. (To see the changes, you have to publish the presentation.)

   CAUTION

   Unsaved modifications to an existing theme are not included in the theme. An asterisk following the theme label at the top of the Theme Editor indicates that there are unsaved settings. Click the Save button to save your changes, and confirm that you want to overwrite the existing theme. If you want to give this theme a new name, click Save As instead and assign the new name.

To delete a custom theme, select the theme’s name in the Theme Name list, click Delete, click Yes to confirm, and click OK to remove it. Note that you can’t delete the default themes.

Customizing the Loading Text

By default, Adobe Presenter displays a loading screen that reads “Adobe Presenter” while your presentation is loading. You can personalize the presentation with your business name or other text on the loading screen.

1. Open a presentation in PowerPoint, and save and publish the presentation to your computer to copy the files locally.
2. In Windows Explorer, locate this folder:

   c:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Adobe Presentations\PresentationName\data

3. Open the vconfig.xml file in an XML editor or Notepad. Scroll down about one-half page to the <language id=”en”> section, and type this code on a blank line, inserting your custom text as the value:

   <uitext name="ADOBE_PRESENTER" value="Insert Your Custom Text"/>

4. Save and close the vconfig.xml file.
5. Open the index.htm web page holding the presentation, located here:

   c:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Adobe Presentations\PresentationName

6. When the page opens, view your custom text as the presentation loads.

Rather than leaving the default Adobe Presenter preload text, or customizing the text for each presentation, you can modify an Adobe Presenter program file to change the text for all your presentations. Here’s how:

1. Locate the Themes folder on your hard drive.On Windows XP, in Windows Explorer, find the folder here:

   c:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Adobe\Adobe Presenter\Themes

   On Windows Vista, from the desktop click Start > Run and type the following command:

   %LOCALAPPDATA%\Adobe\Adobe Presenter

   Click OK to close the Run dialog box and open the folders; double-click the Themes folder.

2. Open the language.xml file in an XML editor or Notepad.
3. Look for the <language id=”en”> section near the start of the file, and type this code, inserting your custom text as the value:

   <uitext name="ADOBE_PRESENTER" value="Insert Your Custom Text"/>

4. Save and close the language.xml file.
5. Back in PowerPoint, save and publish the presentation to your computer, selecting the View Output option.
6. Test the new content.