Technology How To

What is Adobe Acrobat?
Adobe® Acrobat® enables you to create Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files - the worldwide standard for secure and reliable document distribution via print, the Web, or mobile devices. With Acrobat documents display and print the way you intended and are protected from unauthorized access and alterations. (courtesy http://www.adobe.com)

What is a PDF file?
PDF (Portable Document Format) is a file format that has captured all the elements of a printed document as an electronic image. PDF files are created using Adobe Acrobat, Acrobat Capture, or similar products. To view and use the files, users need Acrobat Reader. To create PDF file users need the full version of Adobe Acrobat. PDF files are especially useful for documents in which you want to preserve the original graphic appearance online. (courtesy http://www.whatis.com)

Creating PDF files in Word, Excel and PowerPoint
The WFU standard software load includes the full version of Adobe Acrobat. Icons for creating Acrobat file can be found in the button bar of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. There are two buttons on each toolbar, one for creating a PDF and one for creating a PDF and emailing a PDF.

When you have completed your document in Word, Excel or PowerPoint and are ready to create your PDF, simply click the Create PDF button and Adobe Acrobat will launch (may take a few moments). Once Acrobat is open, you will need to click the save button or go to File Menu > Save As to give the document a name and save it to your hard drive.
Note: If the Adobe Toolbar does not appear in MS Word, go to the File Menu > Print and select Adobe PDF to create a PDF file of the MS Word document.

The Acrobat Tools Menu
Use the Comment & Markup menu under Tools to add notes, comments or highlight text.

Advanced Editing
You can add or replace small amounts of text in a PDF if the font is installed on the system. For extensive changes, edit the original document from which the PDF was created.

• Choose Tools > Advanced Editing > TouchUp Text Tool.
• Select the text you want to edit.
• Type to replace text, or press Delete to remove text.

Inserting Links
Once you have created your PDF, you may want to add in elements such as links.

• Click Tools > Advanced Editing > Link tool.
• Click-hold-drag the crosshairs to select the area of the document you want to be the link. You may want to make the area slightly larger than the text to be sure the link is visible.
• Select from the four radio buttons
  • Go to a page view
  • Open a file
  • Open a web page
  • Custom Link
• Click Next and follow the instruction on the screen.

Creating and Structuring bookmarks
Bookmarks are used to navigate from one section to another within a PDF file. In MS Word Documents, certain styles such as main headings are automatically translated into bookmarks. To manually create a Bookmark inside a PDF file, scroll to the location in the PDF file you wish to bookmark, click the Document > Add Bookmark. Type a name for the bookmark in the bookmark pane on the left.

Inserting Thumbnails
Like Bookmarks, thumbnails can be used to navigate within a PDF file. To ensure thumbnails appear on the web, Click on the Pages tab in the navigation pane, click the Options pull down and click Embed All Page Thumbnails.

Capturing a web site for local use
One great use of Adobe Acrobat is to capture web sites for viewing or demonstrating offline. This procedure will capture all text, images and links and will allow you to navigate through a site when you are NOT connected to the Internet.  Before you capture a web site, however, it is important to spend some time on the page to see how many levels of the site you need for your purposes. Large sites may take a long time to capture, so the fewer levels you can live with, the better.

• To capture a web site, click File > Create PDF > From Web Page.

• Type the URL in the blank provided; you will need to include the http://

• Select how many levels deep you want to go

• Select Get Entire Site ONLY for small sites

• Click the Settings to select advanced download setting

• Click the Create Button.