If you are new to Adobe Acrobat, you should begin by familiarizing yourself with Acrobat’s working environment. Start by learning the names and locations of the various tools that you will need to create and edit PDFs. The first object to examine is the Title Bar, which is located at the very top of the application window. To the far left of the Title Bar, you will see an Acrobat icon. In the center of the Title Bar, you will see the name of the active document as well as the application name. If you don’t have a document open, the center of the Title Bar will only display the name of the application. To the right of the Title Bar, you will see the “Minimize” button, the “Restore Down/Maximize” button, and the “Close” button. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Acrobat’s Quick Tools toolbar contains several buttons that provide commands for creating, saving, exporting, and editing PDF files. To the far left of the Quick Tools toolbar is the “Create” button. When clicked, the “Create” button will open a drop-down menu that you can use to begin the process of creating a new PDF. Users can choose to create a PDF from a file on the computer’s hard drive or clipboard, a scanned document, or even a web page. The “Create” button also contains commands for combining several files into one PDF, as well commands for creating forms and PDF portfolios. Learn this and more during this lecture.

The Navigation Pane, which appears as a collapsed pane at the left side of the main document window, displays four buttons by default. When clicked, each button opens a different panel that is then displayed within the Navigation Pane. The four buttons shown by default within the Navigation Pane are “Page Thumbnails,” “Bookmarks,” “Attachments,” and “Signatures.” In this lesson, you will learn about the functions available within these panels. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Acrobat’s Task Pane is located at the right side of the application window. You can click the three buttons at the right end of the Common Tools toolbar to display their associated panes within the Task Pane. By default, these buttons are named: “Tools,” “Sign,” and “Comment.” Note that the “Tools” button will actually display the name of the currently selected tool set in Adobe Acrobat XI Pro. When the “Default Tools” tool set is selected, the button will be displayed as “Tools.” You will learn about creating custom tool sets in a later lecture. Learn this and more during this lecture.

When you first launch the Acrobat application, most toolbar buttons are dimmed, task panes are collapsed, and the Welcome screen is displayed. On the left side of the Welcome screen, underneath the words “Open a Recent File,” you’ll see several buttons representing the most recent files that have been opened in Acrobat. To open one of these PDFs, click the button with that file’s name. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can customize the toolbars that appear within Adobe Acrobat to add and remove buttons for the features and functions within the program. Learn this and more during this lecture.

One of the handiest features of Adobe Acrobat is its customizable Quick Tools toolbar. Even though Acrobat has a wide variety of tools and features, many users find that they use a few tools more than the rest. By customizing the Quick Tools toolbar with features that you access regularly, you can streamline your work process and save time. Learn this and more during this lecture.

A tool set in Acrobat XI is a combination of a set of buttons that will appear in the Quick Tools area of the Quick Tools toolbar as well as task panes that will appear in the task pane area when you click the “Tools” button at the right end of the Common Tools toolbar. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To edit, rename, copy, delete, import or export a custom tool set, select the “Manage Tool Sets…” command in the menu that appears when you click the “Customize” button at the right end of the Quick Tools toolbar or when you select “View| Tool Sets” from the Menu Bar. Learn this and more during this lecture.

The Pages panel contains tools for inserting pages into a PDF document, as well as tools for editing and manipulating pages within a PDF. To access the Pages panel, click the “Tools” button in the Common Tools toolbar, and then click the “Pages” panel heading within the Tools pane to expand the Pages panel. If you do not see the “Pages” panel within the “Tools” pane, ensure you are viewing the default tool set by choosing “View| Tool Sets| Default Tools” from the Menu Bar. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Acrobat makes it simple to select and copy both text and graphics, which you can then paste into other software applications or use to create other PDF files. When you first open a PDF, notice that the Selection tool is Acrobat’s default tool and that it is already selected and active. The Selection tool can be found just to the left of the Hand tool in the Common Tools toolbar. Learn this and more during this lecture.

For this lecture, make sure to expand both the Page Thumbnails panel in the Navigation Pane and the Pages panel in the Tools pane so that their contents are visible. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Acrobat allows you to view an open PDF document in a number of ways. It’s important to note that, like Acrobat’s various zoom tools, these features do not edit the content of the open PDF in any way, but simply change the appearance of the PDF on the computer’s screen. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Acrobat offers a variety of features for changing the magnification of a page view. It’s important to remember that these zoom tools do not edit PDF documents in any way. They simply change the magnification at which the document’s pages are displayed on your computer screen. Several of these zoom tools can be found in the Common Tools toolbar. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Acrobat is highly customizable, and Adobe allows you to adjust your preferences for many different program settings. To launch Acrobat’s Preferences dialog box, select “Edit| Preferences” from the Menu Bar. At the left side of the window, you will see a long list of categories for which the preferences may be adjusted. Click a category at the left side of this window to view the individual preferences within the selected category in the area to the right. At the top of the list is a grouping of the most commonly-accessed categories: “Commenting,” “Documents,” “Full Screen,” “General,” and “Page Display.” Underneath that group, is a much longer, alphabetized list of other categories that have customizable preferences. When you first open the Preferences window, “General” preferences are displayed. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Acrobat’s “Find” feature allows you to locate a word or phrase in a PDF document quickly, without having to read through all of the text in the document. To use this feature, start by choosing “Edit| Find” from the Menu Bar. The Find toolbar appears in the upper right corner of the application window. You can then type the word or phrase that you want to locate into the text box within this toolbar, and press the “Enter” key on your keyboard. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Acrobat’s “Search” feature goes a step beyond what its “Find” feature can accomplish. Using the “Find” feature, users can locate a specific word or phrase in an active PDF document. By using the “Search” feature, however, you can expand your search to include all of the documents in a folder. Acrobat even allows you to search all of the documents in a PDF Portfolio, including the Portfolio’s non-PDF files. To begin a Search operation in Acrobat, select “Edit| Advanced Search” from the Menu Bar. The Search pane will open in a new window. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Acrobat makes it easy to share PDF documents with others by attaching them to an email. To attach a PDF to an email message, start by clicking the “Send Email” button in the Quick Tools toolbar or by selecting “File| Send File…” from the Menu Bar. This will launch the “Send Email” dialog box, which prompts you to choose between using an email application on your computer, or a web-based email application. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Acrobat allows you to convert a variety of different file formats into PDF documents using the Create command. You can create PDF files from files on a computer’s hard drive or clipboard, or by using the computer’s scanner. You can even create PDF documents from web pages. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To create a PDF from a file on your computer, select either “File| Create” from the Menu Bar or click the “Create” button in the Quick Tools toolbar. Choose the “PDF from File…” command within the menu that then appears to launch the “Open” dialog box. Use this dialog box to find the file to convert to a PDF. When you find the file, click it to select it, and then click the “Open” button within the dialog box. The dialog box closes, and Acrobat converts the selected file into a PDF and displays it in the document window. You can see in the Title bar that the file extension for this file is now .pdf. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Acrobat also installs a PDF print driver into your computer’s system when Adobe Acrobat is installed. This allows you to create a PDF from within almost any program on your computer that uses a printer. To do this, first open a program that can print its contents and then open the “Print” dialog box or pane within the associated program. Within the “Print” dialog box or pane, choose “Adobe PDF” from the list of available printers. Learn this and more during this lecture.

As was noted in the previous lecture, you can click a button or link within the “Print” dialog box or pane of an application that is often called “Properties,” “Page Setup,” “Settings,” or something similar, depending on the application, to open a dialog box that allows you to adjust printer settings for the “Adobe PDF” printer within the program. The “Adobe PDF Settings” tab that appears within this dialog box lets you adjust the conversion settings for your PDF. Note that this dialog box cannot be accessed from apps that can print within Windows 8. You can only access them when using programs run from the desktop environment. Learn this and more during this lecture.

As was noted in the previous lesson, you can click a button or link within the “Print” dialog box or pane of an application that is often called “Properties,” “Page Setup,” “Settings,” or something similar, depending on the application, to open a dialog box that allows you to adjust printer settings for the “Adobe PDF” printer within the program. The “Adobe PDF Settings” tab that appears within this dialog box lets you adjust the conversion settings for your PDF. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To modify the “General” settings within a custom preset of PDF settings, click the “General” category that appears underneath the expanded view of the preset settings within the “Adobe PDF Settings” dialog box. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To modify the “Images” settings within a custom preset of PDF settings, click the “Images” category that appears underneath the expanded view of the preset settings within the “Adobe PDF Settings” dialog box. The settings within the “Images” category determine the compression and resampling to apply to color, grayscale, and monochrome images within a PDF. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To modify the “Fonts” settings within a custom preset of PDF settings, click the “Fonts” category that appears underneath the expanded view of the preset settings within the “Adobe PDF Settings” dialog box. The settings within the “Fonts” category determine which fonts should be embedded within a PDF. You can embed many different types of fonts and subsets of fonts. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To modify the “Color” settings within a custom preset of PDF settings, click the “Color” category that appears underneath the expanded view of the preset settings within the “Adobe PDF Settings” dialog box. The settings within the “Color” category determine the color profile and color management settings to use to produce PDF documents when printing using this preset. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To modify the “Advanced” settings within a custom preset of PDF settings, click the “Advanced” category that appears underneath the expanded view of the preset settings within the “Adobe PDF Settings” dialog box. The settings within the “Advanced” category determine the Document Structuring Conventions (DSC) comments, which contain information about the file, to keep within a PDF and also determine other settings that affect PDF conversion. You can simply check or uncheck the settings shown within this category to enable or disable each setting shown. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To modify the “Standards” settings within a custom preset of PDF settings, click the “Standards” category that appears underneath the expanded view of the preset settings within the “Adobe PDF Settings” dialog box. The settings within the “Standards” category allow you to check PostScript document content to ensure it meets standard PDF/X1-a, PDF/X-3, or PDF/A-1b criteria before the PDF is created. Note that the options shown in this category will depend on the standard selected. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Acrobat makes it easy to convert Microsoft Office files into PDF files from within the Microsoft Office applications. As was shown in an earlier lecture, you don’t need to open Acrobat at all to make use of the PDF conversion feature, thanks to the printer driver that is installed during Acrobat’s installation. In addition, depending on the Adobe Acrobat XI Pro installation configuration used, Adobe Acrobat XI Pro may install the “Acrobat PDFMaker Office COM Addin” into the applications within an existing Microsoft Office installation on the same computer. Note that this “Add-In” is only compatible with Windows versions of Microsoft Office 2003 or later. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Before creating a PDF, you should set the properties that you want the PDF file to contain using the “Preferences” button within the “Create Adobe PDF” button group on the “Acrobat” tab in the Ribbon within Excel, PowerPoint, or Word 2013-2010. You will examine the preferences you can set for PDF conversion within Excel, PowerPoint, and Word in the next lecture. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To set the PDF settings used to convert the current file in Excel, Word or PowerPoint 2013-2010, click the “Preferences” button in the “Create Adobe PDF” button group on the “Acrobat” tab in the Ribbon to open the “Acrobat PDFMaker” dialog box. This dialog box shares many tabs and settings between all three applications. In this lecture, you will learn about these shared conversion settings and also the application-specific settings available to each. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To create a PDF from a file opened in Excel, PowerPoint, or Word 2013-2010 and then use Outlook to attach the PDF file to an email that is automatically generated, click the “Create and Attach to Email” button in the “Create and Email” button group on the “Acrobat” tab in the Ribbon of Excel, PowerPoint, or Word 2013-2010. If using Excel, this will launch the “PDFMaker” dialog box, where you can choose the content of the worksheet to convert to PDF and then click the “Convert to PDF” button. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Acrobat XI Pro allows you to produce the results of a mail merge as PDF files. You can also choose to automatically email these merge result PDF files to designated recipients if the data source of the mail merge contains the recipient’s email address within one of its data fields. If you do not have this information within a field in the associated data source of the mail merge document in Word, you can still produce the results as PDF files, regardless. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To create a PDF from a file opened in Excel, PowerPoint, or Word 2013-2010 and then start a shared review of the file with other users, click the “Create and Send For Review” button in the “Review and Comment” button group on the “Acrobat” tab in the Ribbon of Excel, PowerPoint, or Word 2013-2010. If using Excel, this will launch the “PDFMaker” dialog box, where you can choose the content of the worksheet to convert to PDF and then click the “Convert to PDF” button. Then, for all applications, you use the “Save Adobe PDF File As” dialog box to select the location to which to save the PDF file and to give it a file name. Then click the “Save” button to create the PDF. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can import comments made in a PDF copy of a Word document back into the original Word 2013-2010 document as Word comments for reviewing purposes. To do this, open the Word document into which you want to import the Acrobat comments. Then click the “Acrobat Comments” button in the “Review and Comment” button group on the “Acrobat” tab in the Ribbon in Word 2013-2010. Select the “Import Comments from Acrobat…” command in the drop-down menu to open an “Import Comments from Adobe Acrobat” dialog box. Read the instructions shown in this dialog box about how to perform the process to ensure that the documents that you used are compliant with the instructions shown. When you are ready to being the process, click the “OK” button at the bottom of the dialog box to start. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can embed Flash video into Word and PowerPoint files using Adobe Acrobat. Acrobat can embed Flash video with either the .flv or .f4v file extension. Note that you must have Adobe Flash Player installed and enabled for Internet Explorer for this to work. When embedding flash video, Acrobat will allow you to select player controls to use for the video. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can easily convert email messages into PDFs using Microsoft Outlook 2013-2010. This can be helpful if you want to archive your email messages, or if you want to be able to access or search email content while offline. To convert a selected email message, or multiple selected email messages, into a new single PDF, open Outlook and select the message or messages to convert. Then click the “Selected Messages” button in the “Convert” button group on the “Adobe PDF” tab in the Ribbon and choose the “Create New PDF” command from the drop-down menu. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Outlook can also convert an entire Outlook folder of mail messages into one searchable portfolio PDF file. This can be helpful at the completion of a project to save email communications for archival purposes before deleting them. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To change the settings used by Outlook for PDF conversion and also set up automatic conversion and archiving of messages within Outlook 2013-2010, click the “Change Conversion Settings” button in the “Preferences” button group on the “Adobe PDF” tab in the Ribbon to open the “Acrobat PDFMaker” dialog box. This dialog box contains three tabs: “Settings,” “Security,” and “Automatic Archival.” Learn this and more during this lecture.

If you have a scanner connected to your computer, you can easily create PDF files from scanned paper documents from within the Acrobat application. To do this, place a paper document on your scanner bed and then select “File| Create| PDF from Scanner” from the Menu Bar. From the side menu that appears, you can choose a preset for your document, depending on whether you are scanning a black and white or greyscale document, a color document, or a color image. Advanced users can also access the “Custom Scan” and “Configure Presets” dialog boxes from this menu. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can also create PDF documents from within Adobe applications. As shown in the lesson titled “Creating PDFs Using the PDF Printer,” you can use the “Print” function to convert documents to PDF. However, in Adobe software, you can also create a PDF by selecting “File| Save As” from the Menu Bar to open the “Save As” dialog box. In this dialog box, specify where to save the new PDF. Then click the “Format” drop-down to display a menu of format choices. Select “Adobe PDF” or “Photoshop PDF” or whatever PDF choice is available within your specific Adobe application. You can then enter a name for the file into the “File name” field and set any application-specific PDF save settings shown. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Acrobat has the amazing ability to convert a web page, or even an entire website, into a PDF document. This can be helpful to work on content offline, to email the content from a web page, or simply save it for archival purposes. Because Acrobat includes CSS, image maps, forms, text files and images when it converts the web page, the resulting PDF document behaves in a similar way to the original web page. Unlike the web page, however, the new PDF can be easily printed, emailed, and saved. Learn this and more during this lecture.

When creating a PDF using Acrobat, you can control the document’s initial view settings. This means that you can determine how the PDF will appear on the screen when first opened. To do this, open the PDF in Acrobat whose initial view you want to specify and then select “File| Properties…” from the Menu Bar to open the “Document Properties” dialog box. Click the “Initial View” tab. Learn this and more during this lecture.

In Full Screen mode, Acrobat hides all of the toolbars, menus and panes, so that a PDF document occupies all of the available viewing space on the monitor. Full Screen mode is useful for viewing informational or instructional PDFs. To view a PDF in Full Screen mode, first open a document, and then select “View| Full Screen Mode” from the Menu Bar. The page resizes to fit your screen, and everything but the page disappears from view. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can easily add text to a PDF using Acrobat. To do this, open a document in Acrobat, and then select the “Add Text” tool in the “Content Editing” panel of the “Tools” pane in the Task Pane. The mouse pointer changes into a text insertion tool. Click within the document at the spot where you want to add text and type the new text. You can also copy and paste text from another document or application once you have clicked to define a text insertion point. Learn this and more during this lecture.

As long as the security settings of a document allow for it, you can easily make edits to a PDF with Acrobat. You can change both the content and appearance of text in a text box within a PDF page. To do this, first use Acrobat to open a PDF that contains text. Then choose the “Edit Text & Images” tool from the Content Editing panel of the Tools pane in the Task Pane. Your mouse pointer turns into a text editing tool. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Acrobat allows you to manage the flow of text in PDF documents that contain areas of separated text. For example, if you have a PDF such as a newsletter which spans several pages, longer text articles are sometimes broken up over several pages of the document. If the newsletter will be printed, readers can be instructed with messages such as “continued on page three” at the end of a body of text. If the PDF is going to be viewed on an electronic device, however, you can eliminate the need for a reader to find the next page by creating article threads within Acrobat. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To add an image to a PDF document, first select the “Add Image” tool found in the “Content Editing” panel of the Tools pane in the Task Pane. This will launch the “Open” dialog box. Navigate to find the image you want to add to the PDF, select it, and then click the “Open” button within the dialog box. A thumbnail of the image will appear attached to the mouse cursor. Click to place the image within the PDF. Learn this and more during this lecture.

By default, Acrobat automatically applies Arabic numerals to pages in a PDF document, with the first page of the document as page 1. You can change the way that pages are numbered in a PDF. For example, you can use this to omit numbering from a title page and start page numbering from the second page in the PDF. To do this, open a multi-page PDF and make sure the Page Thumbnails panel is opened within the Navigation Pane. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Acrobat lets you adjust the visible area of a PDF by cropping pages. This can be helpful in creating visual consistency if working with pages of various sizes in a single PDF. To crop a PDF page, choose the “Crop” tool from the Pages panel of the Tools pane in the Task Pane. The mouse pointer will change into a crosshair crop tool, and you can click and drag over the area of the page that you want to remain visible. After you have defined the cropping rectangle, you can make additional changes by dragging the resizing handles of the cropping rectangle. When you are ready to crop the page, double-click within the cropping rectangle to execute the crop operation. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can easily add a watermark to your PDF document using Acrobat. Originally, watermarks were faint designs used only in paper manufacturing, but digital watermarks are helpful for displaying a document’s copyright information, author, or even a logo. To add a watermark to a PDF, first open the Tools pane within the Task Pane. Then click the “Watermark” button in the “Edit Page Design” section of the “Pages” panel within the Task Pane and choose the “Add Watermark…” command from the drop-down menu that appears to open the “Add Watermark” dialog box. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can add a background to a PDF document to create visual interest. To add a background to a PDF, open the Tools pane and expand the Pages panel. Click the “Background” button and then choose the “Add Background…” command in the “Edit Page Design” section within the Pages panel to open the “Add Background” dialog box. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To add headers and footers to PDF files, expand the Pages panel in the Tools pane. Next, in the “Edit Page Design” section, click the “Header & Footer” button and then choose the “Add Header & Footer…” command from the drop-down menu to open the “Add Header and Footer” dialog box. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can attach other files to a PDF. These files can be of many file types, including other PDF files. To attach a file to a PDF, open a PDF document and click the “Attach a File” button in the Content Editing panel of the Tools pane in the Task Pane to open the “Add Files” dialog box. Navigate to the file you want to attach to the PDF, select the file, and then click the “Open” button within the dialog box. The attached file is then displayed in the Attachments panel of the Navigation Pane within the PDF. You can then save the PDF to save the attachment to the PDF file. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can easily add metadata, including keywords, to a PDF using Acrobat. Metadata supplies additional information about a PDF file. To add metadata to a PDF, open a PDF file in Acrobat and then select “File| Properties” from the Menu Bar to open the “Document Properties” dialog box. Click the “Description” tab at the top of the dialog box. Learn this and more during this lecture.

In Acrobat Pro, you can use the PDF Optimizer to control the file size and quality of a PDF. This is especially helpful if you are creating image-intensive PDFs. Sometimes you will want a smaller file size, for example, if you want to produce a PDF intended for mobile devices. At other times you will want the highest image quality possible, for example, if your PDF will be professionally printed. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Bookmarks are links that help to navigate a PDF quickly. You can use bookmarks in PDF documents in a number of ways. The Bookmarks panel, found in the Navigation Pane, contains text links to different points in a PDF document. When you click a link in the Bookmarks panel, the main document window changes to reflect the part of the PDF to which the bookmark is linked. You can also add bookmarks that will open outside documents. Often, bookmarks are linked to headings in the PDF text, sections of text, or the beginning of a chapter. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can modify and organize bookmarks within the Bookmarks panel in the Navigation Pane. You can also nest bookmarks to create bookmark groups. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can create bookmarks in a PDF that are linked to actions. This can be helpful if you want to make it easy for a viewer to access an outside website, or search a PDF, or perform any number of different menu actions from within the Bookmarks panel. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Using Acrobat, you can easily add hyperlinks and other types of links to PDFs. This is helpful when you want to create a link to a webpage within a page in a PDF document. To create a link using Acrobat click the “Add or Edit Link” tool within the Content Editing panel of the Tools pane in the Task Pane. The cursor changes to a crosshair tool, which you use to click and drag over the area where you want the link to appear within the page of the PDF document. As you click and drag, a blue box lets you see the boundaries of the link. When you let go of the mouse button, the “Create Link” dialog box opens. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can use Acrobat to create buttons within pages of PDF documents. Buttons are similar to links in that a person viewing a PDF can click them to launch an action. However, buttons have more complex features that can be adjusted, and buttons can be created “from scratch” in Acrobat, rather than being linked to existing PDF content. Buttons can be configured to launch a variety of different actions, for example submitting data, opening a file, or going to a different page. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can add video, sound, and Flash SWF files to a PDF document using Acrobat. Acrobat XI Pro supports FLV, F4V, MP3, SWF and other media file types encoded with the H.264 codec. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can add 3D content to PDF documents using Acrobat. Acrobat can view U3D and PRC 3D files, such as the kind created in Adobe Photoshop. To add a 3D object to a PDF, select the “Add 3D” tool found in the Interactive Objects panel of the Tools pane in the Task Pane. Then click and drag to define the rectangular canvas area for the 3D object within a page of the PDF. When you release the mouse button, the “Insert 3D” dialog box launches. Click the “Browse…” button at the right end of the “File” field to open the “Select a file” dialog box. Use this dialog box to find the 3D file, click it to select it, and then click the “Open” button to return to the “Insert 3D” dialog box. The name of the selected 3D file and its pathway will appear within the “File” field. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Using Acrobat, you can add dynamic page transitions that will be displayed each time a page advances in a PDF. This can be useful when creating PDFs for audiovisual presentations. To add page transitions using Acrobat, first open a PDF document that contains several pages. Using the Page Thumbnails panel in the Navigation Pane, select the thumbnails of the page or pages to which you want to apply transitions. Then click the “Options” button in the toolbar at the top of the Page Thumbnails panel in the Navigation Pane and choose the “Page Transitions…” command in the drop-down menu to open the “Page Transitions” dialog box. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Using Acrobat, you can easily manipulate entire pages of a PDF. This can be helpful if you want to extract pages from a document or if you want to replace one page with another in a PDF. For example, extracting pages from a PDF is useful if you want to email somebody just one or two pages from a PDF. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Using Acrobat, you can easily split a PDF document into multiple files. This can be helpful to break up a very large PDF into several smaller documents. To split a PDF into multiple files, first open the PDF file you want to split and then choose the “Split Document” tool within the Pages panel in the Tools pane of the Task Pane to open the “Split Document” dialog box. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can insert pages into a PDF from files and other sources using Acrobat. You can insert pages from another PDF file, from content copied to the clipboard, or you can even insert a blank page into a PDF. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can manipulate pages in a PDF in a variety of ways using Acrobat. To move a page to another spot within a PDF file, first display the Page Thumbnails panel in the Navigation Pane and locate the thumbnail image of the page to move. Then click and drag the thumbnail image to a new location within the Page Thumbnails panel in the Navigation Pane. As you move the thumbnail image, a blue highlight bar appears between the other thumbnails, indicating where the page will appear when you release the mouse button. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To combine several PDF documents together to create one larger PDF, select “File| Create| Combine Files into a Single PDF…” from the Menu Bar to open the “Combine Files” dialog box. This dialog box allows you to select the individual PDF files that will be combined into the larger PDF file. The text in the middle of this dialog box states “Add files using the dropdown or drag and drop them here. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can use Acrobat to export text from a PDF document as a text file. To do this, open the PDF to save as a text file and then choose “File| Save as Other| More Options” from the Menu Bar to display a side menu of choices. You can select either “Rich Text Format,” “Text (Accessible),” or “Text (Plain) from the side menu to save the PDF as either a Rich Text Format (.rtf) file or a plain text (.txt) file with or without accessibility by choosing the desired command. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can save a PDF file as an image, or a series of images, using Acrobat. This can be useful for viewing the PDF on a device that doesn’t have Adobe Reader installed. When you export images using Acrobat, each page of a PDF is saved as a separate image. Therefore, a PDF which has only one page will be exported and saved as one image, and a 25-page PDF would be exported and saved as 25 different images. Acrobat can save images as either “JPEG,” JPEG 2000,” “TIFF,” or “PNG” image files. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can export PDF files to Microsoft Word to create dynamic text documents. To do this, open the PDF to convert to a Word document in Acrobat, and then choose “File| Save As Other| Microsoft Word| Word Document” from the Menu Bar. To save the PDF using the older Word 97-2003 file format (.doc) versus the newer format that started with Word 2007 (.docx), then instead choose the “Word 97-2003 Document” command instead of the “Word Document” command in the Menu Bar sequence shown. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Acrobat can export an entire PDF, or only a selected table within a PDF, as Excel worksheets. To export a selected table as an Excel worksheet, choose the Selection Tool within the Common Tools toolbar and then click and drag from the upper left corner of the table to the lower right corner to select the information in the entire table. Right-click the information you just selected and choose the “Export Selection As…” command in the pop-up contextual menu that appears to open a “Save As” dialog box. Select the location to save the file and enter a name for the worksheet into the “File name” field. Then use the “Save as type” drop-down to select “Excel Workbook (*.xlsx)” from the drop-down menu. Then click the “Save” button in the “Save As” dialog box to save the selected table data into a new Excel workbook. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can export the pages in a PDF as slides within a new Microsoft PowerPoint presentation. To export a PDF to PowerPoint, open the PDF to export and then select “File| Save As Other| Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation” from the Menu Bar to open the “Save As” dialog box. Learn this and more during this lecture.

In addition to being a powerful tool for creating PDF documents, Acrobat XI can also be used to collaborate with others. Collaboration is most commonly done as part of a document review process. No matter which of the collaboration tools are used in the review, or how many people are part of the review, the basic workflow process is the same. A review initiator makes a PDF document available to other participants, the participants review and comment on the PDF, and the comments are collected by the initiator of the review either manually or automatically. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can send a PDF document to reviewers using an email-based review process. This type of document review is most effective when only a few people are reviewing a document. Comments made to a shared PDF using this method must be manually imported back into the originating PDF by the review initiator. To start an email review, open the PDF to share in Acrobat and then select the “Send for Email Review” tool in the Review panel of the Comment pane within the Task Pane. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can initiate a “shared document review,” in which all participants can view and respond to others’ comments. Shared reviews are usually more effective than email reviews if many people will be participating in the document review. The shared review process creates a copy of the file on a shared server location of your choosing which allows others to comment and collaborate on the shared PDF directly. The shared file will be named the same as the original, but with a “_review” added to the file name. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To review a shared PDF that has been sent to your email account via an email review, open the PDF attachment within the email using Acrobat 6 or Adobe Reader 7, or later. Then make any comments needed within the PDF and click the “Send Comments” button to open a “Send Comments” dialog box. The recipient's email address and default subject and message text will appear within the “Send Comments” dialog box that launches. You can click into the message text to add any additional text, if needed. Learn this and more during this lecture.

As long as a PDF doesn’t have security features applied to restrict commenting, you can add comments to any PDF file using Acrobat. Usually, comments are added by document reviewers as messages to the author of the PDF. However, some people also use commenting tools to write notes to themselves while creating PDFs. Learn this and more during this lecture.

After adding an annotation, you can open the Comments List panel within the Comment pane in the Task Pane to see the PDF annotations. When the Comments List is opened, sticky note comments, which will normally display on the PDF pages when the Comments List is closed, will instead disappear from the PDF pages and show themselves as comments within the Comments List panel. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can click the “Options” button in the small toolbar at the top of the Comments List panel in the Comment pane within the Task Pane to display a drop-down of advanced comment commands. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Adobe Reader XI includes all of the markup and commenting tools included with Acrobat XI. In previous versions of Reader, users only had access to the “Sticky Note” and “Highlight Text” tools unless features had been extended for the PDF in Acrobat. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can add drawing markups that remain visible on a PDF page at all times, even when the Comments List panel is displayed. With the exception of the “Add text box” and “Add text callout” drawing markups, the other drawing markups are simple shapes that do not contain text comments by default. However you can easily add a text comment to any drawing markup, if desired. To show the drawing markup tools, click the Drawing Markups panel within the Comment pane in the Task Pane. Learn this and more during this lecture.

The “Add stamp” tool in the Annotations panel of the Comment pane in the Task Pane is used to place a stamp into a PDF page. Acrobat comes with several preset stamps that are commonly used in business, such as stamps for approving a document or indicating where a user needs to add a signature to a document. You can also create your own custom stamps, if needed. Learn this and more during this lecture.

When you receive the reviewer’s copies of the shared PDF sent for an email review, you can double-click the attachments within the received emails to open the PDF that contains the reviewer’s markups. Acrobat will display the “Merge Comments?” message box that lets you know that this is a copy of a PDF that is tracked for review and that it may contain markups and comments. It then asks if you would like to open the tracked PDF and merge any comments and markups from the attachment PDF into the original PDF. To merge the comments and markups into the original PDF, click the “Yes” button. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can manage all of the documents that you currently have out for review by using the Tracker feature within Acrobat. To view the Tracker window, open Acrobat XI and then click the “Track Reviews” tool in the Review panel of the Comment pane in the Task Pane. The Tracker window displays content in the right pane for the item selected in the left pane. The “Latest Updates” item is selected when you open this window and shows the latest updates on your reviewed file in the area to the right. You can click the small plus or minus signs next to the items in the left pane to expand and collapse the sections shown. Learn this and more during this lecture.