Adobe Acrobat 9 How-To : Commenting and Measuring on a PDF Map

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.

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    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.

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You can customize the content and appearance of the geospatial comments, just as you can with other types of comments.

Searching for Coordinates

You can search for specific coordinates rather than scrolling the maps for a location—a handy approach if you have several pages of maps showing different features such as topography and rainfall distribution. To use coordinate searching, you need a georeferenced map.

  1. Right-click the Geospatial Location tool on the map to open the shortcut menu. Choose Show Location Search.
  2. In the Info widget, type the positioning values in the two blank fields and click Next. The location is shown on the map in a special icon
    f desired, identify the location with a comment.Continue adding reference data and identifying map locations as needed. When you’re done, choose Hide Location Search from the shortcut menu to close the Search widget.

The Measuring tools can measure distance, area, and perimeter on a map. The measuring tools work much the same way in map and non-map PDF files, with a couple of exceptions:

  • On a PDF map, the measured value is stored in a drawing markups comment, such as a line or polygon.
  • On a PDF map, the shortcut menu for the measurement types includes options to specify distance units and area units.

The values shown in the measurement are inserted into a comment using the map data

Building a PDF Map

With Acrobat Pro Extended (Windows), you can import a map image and create geospatially enabled PDFs. You can georegister a map by using its boundary coordinates and the projection scale on which the map is based.

  1. Select the Geospatial Registration tool on the Analysis toolbar, and right-click an area on the map to start the Geospatial Registration wizard. Type a name for the map and click Next.
  2. Define the neatline (boundaries) for the map you want to produce. Click at each of four corners to add an indicator, and continue to draw the shape. Double-click to end the neatline. To use the entire page, select Use Page Bounds as Neatline.
  3. The Input Registration Points screen of the wizard opens automatically. Click a point on your neatline and type the latitude and longitude values in the Input Points fields for the point. Repeat for the other three boundary points. Click Next.
  4. Select a registration system from the drop-down list, and specify default units of measure.
  5. Click OK to move to the end of the wizard. The Geospatial Location tool and Measurement tool are now enabled to interact with geospatial content in the document.