25 Supa-Killah Acrobat Secrets, Part 1 [ continued ]

Secret #5: Work Half Days From Now On, Acrobat Has Batch Processing!

Holy hell, Batch Processing?! Yup, and it's the meat ‘n potatoes in Acrobat! What’s Batch Processing, you ask? Well, Photoshop calls ‘em Actions, in Microsoft-land they call ‘em macros. Well in Acrobat, we call it Batch Processing, and it works a little something like this: Ya got a folder of 50-zillion PDFs, and the boss wants ‘em all watermarked and secured before the end of the day. Well, grab your jacket and head out for an early lunch, cuz you're already done—you set up your own batch, smarty-pants. Here’s how it goes: Head to Advanced > Document Processing > Batch Processing. The dialog that appears is gonna letcha run one of the pre-created batch sequences, like Fast Web View or Set Security To No Changes, or you can create your own by clicking the New Sequence button. Happy batching; just don’t let the boss see you when you’re on your way out!

Secret #6: Make ‘Er Just Right With Initial View

“Son-of-a-motherless-goat-herder, every time I open this freakin’ PDF, it opens all zoomed in, and that’s not how I want it to open for the client when I send it over!” Soothing breath, grasshopper. Acrobat has a wee stress-reducing command called Initial View, which lets you control how your PDF opens for your users. Check it: Go to File > Properties; then click on the Initial View tab. Hells yeah! You can control the magnification, what navigation tab opens automatically, and even what page the PDF opens on. How cool is that? Give ‘er a try by setting an option or two; save your file; then reopen it. To your surprise, it’ll open exactly as you’d specified. Sweet, that’ll make the vein in your forehead go away!

Secret #7: Even More Interactivity With Page Actions!

On the interactive side of things, you can get into what are traditionally called Page Actions in Acrobat. The idea would be to have some kind of an event, like a sound play or a message appear when the user navigates to a specific page in your PDF. Give ‘er a try by heading to View > Navigation Panels > Pages; then in the Pages panel that appears, right-click (Windows) or Ctrl+click (Mac) on the page that you’d like to attach the action to, and choose Page Properties. In the dialog box that appears, click the Actions tab, and go nuts! Now where ya gonna use this? Again, get that creative thinking going, there are tons of applications for adding this sort of interactivity to PDFs! To test your action, navigate away from the page, then head back to it. Easy!

Secret #8: Say Yer Prayers PowerPoint, Acrobat’s Got A Full Screen Mode!

If I have to attend one more freakin’ PowerPoint presentation, the presenter’s gonna get a choke-slam! It’s the whiz-bang slidey bullet points, the spinny headings, and the oh-so-barfy special effects that I just can’t take anymore. Gahh…Kay so enough with PowerPoint. Create your full screen presentations in Acrobat instead. Why? No more slidey bullet points, woo-hoo! So whatcha do is build your slides in the app you’re most comfortable in. InDesign, Photoshop, where ever. Years back I kicked major ass with one I did up in Quark. Make sure you follow all the standard full screen advice, like avoiding 6pt type, dropping 8,000 graphics on a single slide, and using a page size more like 8.5x5 (or something like that). Next, take your file and convert it to PDF. Once you’ve got it open in Acrobat, choose View > Full Screen Mode. Whoa, how awesome is that? And nobody knows Acrobat can do this! Customize things a bit further by going into Acrobat’s preferences (Edit > Preferences in Windows; Acrobat > Preferences on the Mac); then into the Full Screen category. You can create self-running shows, shows that loop, and all kindsa cool stuff. And notice, no barfy-effects options. Means no one’s gonna get a choke-slam!

So, are ya diggin'? Then discuss and share your Acrobat secrets over in the comments. And if you're ready for it, here's Part 2 of 25 Supa-Killah Acrobat Secrets!

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