Acrobat Resources

TIP #135

Using a Batch Sequence

Suppose your usual workflow entails adding description details to your documents, then adding a header or footer, adding page num­bers, and finally removing the comments before saving a copy of the document. And suppose you have to do this process over and over on a regular basis. Wouldn’t it be nice to click a couple of buttons and have Acrobat do the work for you? Acrobat 7 Professional lets you take the ho-hum out of performing many repetitious tasks by using batch sequences.

Acrobat includes eight default batch processes, and you can easily write your own custom sequence, as you’ll see in this tip. Unlike most things you do in Acrobat, you don’t need to have documents open in Acrobat to apply a batch sequence. The beauty of using a sequence to perform a variety of tasks for you is that you can customize it to meet both your work requirements and your work habits.

Decide what you want the program to do for you, and assemble your own custom batch sequence—this tip shows how to build a batch process that modifies a document’s description, adds a footer and page numbers, removes the comments, and then saves the file with a unique name separate from the original file. You must make four decisions when building your own files: the commands you want to run, what files you want to use, where you want the finished files stored, and in what format.

Follow these steps:

1. Choose Advanced > Batch Processing to open the Batch Sequences dialog. Click New Sequence. A small dialog opens for you to name the sequence (Figure 135a). Type the name and click OK. Use a meaningful name for the sequence—the example is called mm_summary reports, which refers both to a specific project as well as the types of docu­ments the batch process will be applied to.

Figure 135a Name your custom batch sequences. If you use a lot of batch processes, make the names descriptive.

2. The Edit Batch Sequence [name] dialog opens. Click Select Commands to open the Edit Sequence dialog (Fig­ure 135b).

Figure 135b Add the commands in this dialog, and specify if you want to customize each document as a command is run.
See larger image.

3. Click an arrow to open the category of action, such as Docu­ment, in the column at the left of the dialog. Click to select an action, such as Description, and then click Add to move the action to the list at the right of the dialog.

4. Add other actions for your sequence. In the example, in addi­tion to the Description action, I have used the Add Watermark & Background and Number Pages actions from the Document category, as well as the Delete All Comments action from the Comments category. You can reorder them by clicking the Move Up or Move Down button, or you can delete an action if you change your mind by clicking Remove.

5. Assign an Interactive Mode to actions you want to control manually. In Figure 135b, the action for deleting comments has a solid gray box to the left of the command’s name, which means this action has no configuration options—comments are either deleted or they aren’t. The other three actions have a depressed gray box to the left of their names, which means they can be defined as Interactive. Click to toggle the Interac­tive Mode, which displays a gray and white icon in the gray box. When the batch script is run, Acrobat will prompt you for decisions about these actions. In the example, the Number Pages action will occur automatically, while both the Descrip­tion and Add Watermark & Background actions will pause and wait for my input before continuing the sequence.

Note: You can see the characteristics of the action as well. Click the arrow to the left of the command’s icon to display the contents. In Figure 135b, the Description details are shown.

6. When you have finished adding commands, click OK to close the dialog and return to the Edit Batch Sequence [name] dia­log. The commands are listed in the dialog (Figure 135c).

Figure 135c Once you have chosen the commands for your batch sequence, choose the files to process and where to store them.

7. Click the pull-down arrow and choose an option for running the command based on the requirements of your project. If you are building a sequence for a specific project and have stored the files in one folder location, choose that option; if you have files in several folders, choose Selected Files, as shown in the figure. The option you choose determines the other selections that are available. For example, if you choose Files Open in Acrobat, the rest of the dialog is dimmed.

8. Click the pull-down arrow and choose an option for storing the processed files according to your project’s needs (Figure 135d). If you think you might use the sequence repeatedly, choose Ask when Sequence is Run, or if the files are intended for the same output folder, choose Specific Folder and select the folder.

Figure 135d Decide where you want to store the files according to your workflow.

9. Click Output Options to open the Output Options dialog so can configure the processed files further (Figure 135e).

Figure 135e You can choose additional options for the finished files, such as modified names and file formats. 

10. Select custom options for your project. For example, you can append or prepend characters to the original files’ names, choose to overwrite the original files or not, choose an output format from the pull-down menu (you can save the processed files as Web pages, Word documents, text, and so on), or select fast Web save or PDF Optimizer options. In the example, the files prepared by this batch process will all have the prefix PR_ attached to their names, will be saved as PDF documents, will be optimized, and will be separate from the original documents.

11. Click OK to close the Output Options dialog, and then click OK again to close the Edit Batch Sequence [name] dialog, returning you to the original Batch Sequences dialog. Your new sequence is included in the dialog’s list (Figure 135f).

Figure 135f Your custom batch sequence is listed in the dialog in alphabetical order and ready for use.

12. If you are ready to use the process (either a custom sequence or one of the defaults), click Run Sequence. You can also rename it, edit it, and delete it by clicking the appropriate buttons.

As the process is applied, you may see dialogs, depending on the commands you added to your sequence. In the example, since I specified an Interactive Mode for both the Description and the Add Watermark & Background commands, when each document is pro­cessed the two dialogs open for custom settings. 

Plan Ahead

To get you into the batch sequence mindset, here are a few ideas to consider:

• Plan ahead. As you start working on a project, consider tasks that are likely be repetitious and plan to use a batch sequence before you start the project. That way, you won’t waste time making simple changes in some of the docu­ments in a project that could easily be handled with a batch sequence applied to the whole project.

• Put the files you plan to batch into a separate folder. It’s easier to keep track of where you are in your workflow. You can include other files in your batch sequence besides PDF documents. (See the sidebar “But What About…?”).

• Configure and tweak a sample file. If you want headers and footers on 50 documents, for example, test and apply them to one document. When you are satisfied with the appearance, you are ready to build and use a batch sequence for the rest.

• Write and test your batch sequence at any time. You don’t need to be working with a project’s files to write the sequence.

• Consider writing a group of batch sequences. In a large project, you may need several sequences for different purposes. Set aside some time to construct and test them.

• Pay attention to how you like to work. As you construct a batch, you can allow for prompts that let you check documents. Some people like to see each document as it is changed; others prefer to let Acrobat do its thing independently. 

This tip was excerpted from:
Adobe Acrobat 7 Tips and Tricks: The 150 Best by Donna Baker.
Copyright © 2005 Donna Baker.
Used with permission of Pearson Education, Inc. and Adobe Press.

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