The Cool New PDF Creation Features in Acrobat 8

by Ted Padova

In my introductory article “My favorite new features in Acrobat 8,” I mentioned two super commands in Acrobat 8 for combining files: The Combine Files command and the Create PDF Package command. These two new PDF creation features rank high on my list of favorite new features. While the two commands are both PDF creation features, they are used for different purposes.

Combining PDF Files

A new task button appears in Acrobat 8 in the Tasks toolbar. Click the down pointing arrow on the Combine task button and you see a few menu commands shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1

Selecting a menu item or just clicking the task button opens a wizard where you can choose to Combine multiple documents into a single PDF file or create a PDF Package (learn more about PDF Packages later in this article).

Let’s start out with combining files into a single PDF document. This feature is quite similar to the Create PDF From Multiple Files menu command we had in Acrobat 7; but as you can see in Figure 2, a few more options have been added to Combine Files in Acrobat 8. First, click the Add button and select the files you want to combine into a single PDF. A dialog box opens where you can select any file type that is compatible with the Create PDF From File command (Microsoft Office files, image files, text, HTML, various Adobe application documents, and more). When you select the files you want to combine together and click OK, you return to the Combine Files wizard shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2
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As you can see in the list, you have some options for organizing the order of the files very similar to what was available in Acrobat 7. But take a look at the Choose Sheets button in the lower right corner of the wizard pane. Select a file in the list and click this button and you’ll see your document appear in a separate preview window. In my example, I click on a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and my Excel workbook opens in a separate window.

The Options button lets you choose what pages you want to combine in your PDF document. In my Excel spreadsheet, I click the second worksheet shown in Figure 3. I only want this worksheet included in my combine files, so I’ll select the worksheet and click OK and I return to the Combine Files wizard window.

Figure 3
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You can select individual pages and page ranges in other programs like Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and more. After deciding what pages to include and the order of your files, click the Next button and you’ll see a preview of the listed order. Click Next and Acrobat begins to convert your files to PDF and combine them into a single PDF file. You arrive at the last wizard pane after conversion and concatenation where you can click the Save button and your files are all converted to PDF and saved in a new PDF document that opens in the Acrobat Document pane.

Creating PDF Packages

Suppose you had a file that was password protected or you had a digital signature on a document? These kinds of documents can’t be combined into a singe PDF file using the Create PDF From Multiple command in Acrobat 7 or the new Combine Files command in Acrobat 8. In addition, if you try to combine several forms having identical field names, all the field contents on the first form in your single PDF document are duplicated in all the other forms you combine into a single PDF. In other words, all the unique data in the forms is destroyed.

What we need is another method for combining files. If you asked for this kind of solution, it just arrived in Acrobat 8 and it’s called PDF Packages.

To create a PDF Package, click the Combine Files task button to open the same wizard you use when combining files into a single PDF document. You add files in a similar manner by clicking the Add button and selecting files in another dialog box. Click OK and you return to the Combine Files wizard.

At the top of the Combine Files wizard, you have a radio button you can select for creating a PDF Package. In Figure 4 you can see that I included three forms, a file with a digital signature, and another file that was saved with password security. When the Combine Files button is selected, you see some warning symbols appear on the file names indicating that these files can’t be combined into a single PDF file.

Figure 4
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However, when I click the PDF Packages radio button, I can proceed and combine my files together to form a PDF Package. Click the Next button and you arrive at the second wizard pane confirming your action. Click Next and the package is created. You can preview the document and if you’re satisfied, click the Save button. The PDF Package then opens in Acrobat shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5
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PDF Packages provide you with some other options not available with combined files. An index file is created and embedded in the PDF package automatically and you can search the index to find text strings in all the files contained in the package. You have some marvelous opportunities to create PDF Packages of selected emails in Microsoft Outlook. You have options for exporting data to a spreadsheet from forms combined in a PDF Package as I discussed in my last article, and you can choose to optimize files from three different options in the Combine Files wizard.

For PDF Packages you can choose to use a default cover sheet for your package or the first page in the first PDF file for your cover page. What’s really neat is creating your own custom cover pages complete with form fields and a digital signature. To find out how to do that and to understand some of the other options and attributes for combining files and creating PDF packages, keep an eye on the tips I post to my blog on acrobatusers.com.