Ted Padova’s AUC Blog

Beginning the Year of the Rat with an Acrobat Conference

January 8th, 2008

Officially the year of the Rat begins on February 7 on the Chinese Lunar New Year. February begins the Chinese New Year; and for Acrobat users, February is the month we’ll see the first Adobe Acrobat Conference in the year. The lucky number for this year is 8 so there’s a little rhyme and reason for talking about the new year and Acrobat Conferences.

The Conference for Adobe Acrobat sponsored by Mogo Media to be held February 28-March 1 is coinciding with the Adobe InDesign Conference in Miami Beach. This conference is quite unique. The Acrobat Conference is like a mini conference dedicated completely to Adobe Acrobat. However other sessions on Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign and several other Adobe applications are also being held in tandem with the Acrobat Conference. Users can choose from sessions within the Acrobat tracks and pick out a few other sessions in Photoshop and InDesign. For PDF authors, this is the conference of the year to attend.

Check out the Acrobat Conference and look over the conference program and list of many Acrobat and other Adobe applications authorities who will be speaking at this event.

Friend and colleague David Blatner is behind this program. I can assure you that anything David is involved with is a first class event. You won’t be disappointed if you can make Miami Beach in February.

ted

Posted in PDF Conferences | 2 Comments »

World’s Youngest AUG Member

October 31st, 2007

The newly formed Davao City Philippines Acrobat User Group is claiming to have the youngest active member in an Acrobat User Group. Here in this photo four-year old Sky Cubos demonstrates how to conquer villains in a complex maze.

Sky Cubos

Later in the last Davao AUG meeting, young Sky got more serious when he assisted his father Chris Cubos, Davao Chapter Leader, in a demonstration on Adobe Flex.

Chapter Leader Chris Cubos and Sky

Asked what he hopes to learn at the AUG meetings, Sky told us he was looking forward to seeing more integration of Adobe Flash and PDF and Flex-based Adobe AIR Applications.

Posted in Education | 6 Comments »

101 Forms eTips

October 30th, 2007

I just returned from the Acrobat Central Conference in Omaha Nebraska. The weather was about the same as last year… that’s blistering cold for someone who lives in the tropics. But in spite of the weather, I had a great time talking to Acrobat users from many different professions and picked up some tips from my friends and colleagues such as Bob Connolly, Thom Parker, and Ali Hanyaloglu.

Among my sessions was one on Acrobat Tips. The session seems to be a popular topic as the attendance was great for this session with a few extra chairs pulled in to accommodate the attendees.

Due to the popularity of a session on Acrobat Tips, I thought I’d put together a little document for all of you who couldn’t attend the conference. The title of the document is 101FormseTips. It’s a collection of some of the most frequent tasks I use when creating Acrobat PDF forms and LiveCycle Designer forms from the design stage through adding JavaScripts.

In light of Adobe’s announcement for the release of Acrobat 8.1.1, I had to take a back seat to Adobe. If you’re reading this blog post and the file isn’t available for download on the Acrobat Users home page it means that Adobe is getting a little more press and we have to wait a bit until the file is posted. It shouldn’t be long though so look over the home page and download the file.

If you have any comments on the content of the 21MB download, you can post them here if the file download doesn’t provide a page for comments.

Let me know your thoughts after reviewing it.

ted

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Posted in Forms Tips | 5 Comments »

Enabling Adobe Reader Users Options for Importing Images on Forms

October 9th, 2007

You may have a need to use a button field on a form for adding an image to the PDF file —something like an employee ID form or an application that requires a photo to be submitted with the form.

You can easily add a button field in Acrobat and click the field to import an image onto your form. But if you try to import an image on a form created in Acrobat Pro using Adobe Reader, the button just sits there and won’t prompt you with a Broswe dialog box that enables you to import a photo on the form.

With just a simple solution in Adobe LiveCycle Designer you can easily create an Image Field that is recognized by Adobe Reader and allows the Reader user to import an image on a button click.

You can either create a form in LiveCycle Designer or open a form in LiveCycle Deisgner that you created in Acrobat. In Figure 1, I opened a form that was created in Acrobat. All the form fields are recognized by Designer and all I need to do is to add one more field to my deisgn.

To add the field to your form open the Library panel and choose the Image Field object. Be certain to use Image Field and not Image and drag the field to your form as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1

That’s it. Just save the file as either a static or dynamic PDF document (any version) and now the Adobe Reader user can import an image with the click on the Image Field (see Figure 2).

Figure 2

The file does not need to be enabled with Reader extensions for this to work. But if you want the Reader user to save the data after filling in the form, choose Advanced > Enable Usage Rights in Adobe Reader from within Acrobat Pro.

Download the PDF file ( File Size: 88K)

ted

Posted in Forms Tips | 3 Comments »

What happened to the Go to Bridge tool?

October 5th, 2007

For those who use the Adobe Creative Suite, you may have noticed the appearance of the Go to Bridge tool (see Figure 1) in the File toolbar in Acrobat and the addition of the Browse command in the File menu. Some of you may have seen the tool appear in Acrobat 8.0, but lost it after installing Acrobat 8.1.

Personally, I like the shortcut to open Adobe Bridge while working in Acrobat. The Organizer is a great tool for accessing commonly used files such as reference documents like the Acrobat complete help PDF file, the JavaScript Specification Manual, and a host of different files you can use for samples and help documents for Adobe LiveCycle Designer.

However, when poking around my hard drive, I prefer to use Adobe Bridge. The Bridge window shows thumbnails of all the files and folders on mounted drives and I can easily locate documents in a new improved interface introduced in version CS3.

One can easily launch Bridge from the Status Bar (Windows) or the Dock (Macintosh) so it’s really not a big deal if the Go to Bridge tool is not showing up in your File toolbar. But, having the tool in Acrobat, just adds a little more ease in accessing Bridge.

To get the tool to show up in the File toolbar is a painful process if you don’t see it now in Acrobat 8.1. If you installed Acrobat, then later install the Adobe Creative Suite, the tool appears in Acrobat 8.0. However, installing the Acrobat 8.1 patch, eliminates the tool from the File toolbar and it won’t show up anywhere in the More Tools window.

If you install Acrobat from the CS3 installer DVD-Rom along with the CS3 apps, then upgrade Acrobat, the tool remains installed in the File toolbar. However, if you deinstall Acrobat and need to reinstall it, running the 8.0 installer gets the tool back in the File toolbar, but upgrading to 8.1 looses the tool. Your only solution is to completely deinstall the CS3 applications, then run the installer and install Acrobat along with the CS3 apps and later upgrade to Acrobat 8.1. This is a task that will take you hours due to the unbearably slow install process for the CS3 applications.

If you happen to have several licensed copies of Acrobat and the Go to Bridge tool appears on one machine while not showing up on other machines, you can’t copy the plug-ins folder from one computer to another to get the tool installed. It’s a plug-in, but for some reason it won’t show up by copying plug-ins from one computer to another. Also, don’t look at repairing the Acrobat installation. That won’t do it either. Again, the only way I’ve found is to do a complete deinstall/reinstall of Acrobat and the CS3 apps from the CS3 installer DVD.

If you happen to find an easier solution, post it here.

ted

Posted in Acrobat 8 | No Comments »

OpenSource.org PDF Forms

September 25th, 2007

I recently downloaded OpenOffice.org for my Mac and Windows machines. Perhaps many of you have been working with OpenOffice much longer, but this is a report of my initial flirtation with the programs and I wanted to see what kinds of PDF related things I could do with OpenOffice.org Writer. Particularly in the area of creating PDF forms.

I’m a little late with my first look at OpenOffice since people like Carl Young here on Acrobat Users reported on using OpenOffice for forms design back in April. Take a look at Carl’s posts OpenOffice as an Acrobat Form Design Tool and More on OpenOffice as a Form Design Tool.

Admittedly I have much to learn about the program, so perhaps anyone passing by this blog post can help me out with adding your impressions to working with OpenOffice.org Writer and exporting to PDF.

For those who don’t know, OpenOffice applications export directly to PDF. OpenOffice.org Writer also supports creating live form fields and exporting to PDF. For a free downloadable application, you’ll find many impressive features in the program.

Designing a Form

The design atmosphere in Writer emulates a similar interface to Adobe LiveCycle Designer more than it does with Adobe Acrobat. If you’re familiar with creating forms in Designer, then poking around in OpenOffice should be much easier for you.

In the design arena, I found some interesting tools and features in Writer. I personally like to design forms in Adobe InDesign just for the sheer unlimited design potential that InDesign offers. In my opinion the Table features in InDesign are unsurpassed by any other application I’m familiar with. Not to mention other kinds of design elements you can add only in InDesign. Take a look at Figure 1 as an example. There’s no way I could create the same look in any program but InDesign.

Figure 1
Download this form(519K)

In OpenOffice however I found some features not supported in InDesign. My impression is that, overall, OpenOffice is a little clumsier laying out a form than InDesign as Carl attests in his articles, but OpenOffice does have some very nice features not found in InDesign. As an example the Formula command in the Table menu enables you to add formulas to individual cells. I find this feature very nice when designing a form. InDesign hasn’t quite evolved to being a design application for PDF forms so obviously as yet, we wouldn’t expect InDesign to support formulas in cells and formatting cells for data.

The clumsiness I find is no doubt, in part, due to my own limitations in knowing the program well. I guess it’s hard to get away from enjoying the freedom that a program like InDesign offers you where you can plunk down any text or graphic anywhere on the page and freely drag objects around. I’m more of a non-structured form designer and think about layout as I’m creating a form rather than plan it all out ahead of time. With OpenOffice similar to LiveCycle Designer you are restricted to working in a much more structured environment. Placement of tables, text, and objects on a new layout are fixed to positions and I had a devil of a time trying to move things around the page.

Exporting to PDF

Without delving into the complex areas of using subforms and many more advanced features that OpenOffice.org Writer offers you, I created a simple form using the Table features and exported to PDF. I really wanted to see if those form fields are live in Acrobat and if it all works as I designed the form. Unfortunately, I just didn’t spend enough time trying to figure out getting the formula right for adding a column of numbers. Again, this is my limitation in using the application. I believe it does hold a lot of promise for the skilled form designer familiar with the program.

One discovery I found that I think is very important for those who may use OpenOffice for creating PDF forms, is that everything was fine in Acrobat for making modifications to my form. I used Acrobat to calculate a column of fields and saved the file. No problem here. However, when I chose Save As and rewrote the file, the result was a garbled mess as you can see in Figure 2. I found this anomaly equal on both Windows and the Macintosh.

Figure 2

There are some font issues going on with OpenOffice that I haven’t figured out yet. The one thing you need to be certain about if you decide to create some forms in OpenOffice is to be certain to check your work and make sure every aspect of the form is properly designed and functional.

I’m with Carl when he raised the question related to the flexibility of using XML type forms in Acrobat. An Adobe Live Cycle Designer form can’t be optimized with the PDF Optimizer in Acrobat, you can’t embed an index file, you can’t add headers and footers/watermarks and backgrounds, and you can’t add any comments or markups. You can’t insert LiveCycle Designer forms into a PDF document, edit initial views, nor add links or buttons for interactivity. You can add Designer forms to a PDF Package, but that’s about the only thing you can do in Acrobat related to any kind of editing. And, of course the most important issue is that you can’t edit a single form field in Acrobat.

On the other hand, forms created with OpenSource can take advantage of all the editing features you have with other PDF documents. You can do all the above, edit text, place images, and just about anything else Acrobat has to offer.

All in all I haven’t seen enough in OpenOffice to suggest to anyone that you use the program exclusively for PDF forms creation. There may be some benefits for using OpenOffice as a design tool, but adding the polish on your form is much better handled in Acrobat. Perhaps it could be a great companion product to Acrobat when it matures, but I don’t see Open Office completely replacing Acrobat or LiveCylce Designer.

I’d be interested in knowing your thoughts on using OpenOffice to create PDF forms.

ted

Download the form. (180K)

Posted in Forms Tips | 6 Comments »

Simplifying Form Field Duplications

September 14th, 2007

I’ve been gearing up for the Acrobat Central Conference being held in Council Bluffs, IA on October 23 and 24 for several weeks now. I needed to do an overhaul on all my demo files, so it’s taken me several weeks to prepare for my sessions and workshops.

Of all the tips and techniques I use in my upcoming speaker sessions, my favorite is simplifying field duplication on Acrobat forms. I thought I’d give a preview here on Acrobat Users for those who can’t make the conference.

Let’s take a look at the form shown in Figure 1. It’s a rather simple PDF form with not many fields and it wouldn’t take much time to manually create the fields on this form. However, we can cut our time down a little by using the method described below. On this form, I’ve already created some fields for the identifying information at the top of the form as you can see in Figure 1.

Figure 1

Notice under Emergency Contact Info you find an identical set of fields as the fields shown in Figure 1. To speed up my work in Acrobat and make it a little easier to create my fields, I’ll just duplicate the fields in the top section and add the duplicates to the bottom portion of my form.

But wait you say… the fields need unique names in order to accept unique data. And, of course, you’re correct. So our task is to copy the existing fields and paste in fields with different names. Here’s how we do it:

Open the Fields panel

2. When the Fields panel opens, this particular form shows me two field names. The employee field name is a hierarchical name. My actual fields on the form are employee.first, employee.last, employee.address, and so on. If I rename the parent name, all my fields will keep the same child name while taking on the new parent name. In this example, I’ll use emergency for the root name so my fields will hence take on names such as emergency.first, emergency.last, emergency.address and so on.

To rename the fields, open a context menu on the name you want to rename in the Fields panel and choose Rename field as shown in Figure 2. Type a new name and all the fields with the same parent name are changed.

Figure 2

3. Copy the fields. Use the Select Object tool and select all fields you want to copy, then choose Edit > Copy or press Command/Ctrl + C.

4. Revert the file. We just temporarily changed the field names in this file. We still need the original field names on our form while adding all the emergency field names. The original names are on the original file and the new names are on the Clipboard. Choose File > Revert and you get back the original unedited document.

5. Paste the new fields. Once again, on the Clipboard are all the renamed fields. Choose Edit > Paste or press Command/Ctrl + V and the fields with the new parent names are pasted into the document.

One word of caution: be sure to have the Select Object tool active when you paste fields into a PDF document. You can easily click and drag the selected fields around the document page. If the Hand tool is selected when you paste the fields and you click the Select Object tool, you loose the field selections. This could make it difficult to select the new fields scattered around the existing fields you don’t want moved. Don’t bother locking the fields. You can still copy and paste locked fields.

6. Click and drag the fields to position. In Figure 3 you can see my final result. The employee fields are at the top of the form and the emergency fields have been moved to position at the bottom of the form. The fields have identical attributes for the common fields such as formatting for phone numbers and a Combo box for choosing the state name.

Figure 3

Download the Sample Form. File size is: 362K

Let’s take a look at another example and a little twist using a similar method. In Figure 4 you see a multi-page form with fields created on page 2. Following this page I have 3 more pages requiring the same fields in the same locations. If these were all user input fields with no calculations, I could use the same method described above. However, there are a number of JavaScripts and field calculations on this form. My needs are to not only rename the fields for the other pages, but also edit the JavaScripts. Once again, I was certain to use hierarchical names. The field names for Budapest all begin with b. I also have a form for Chengdu, Sweden, and Hawaii. Therefore, I’ll want my parent names for these pages to be c, s, and h respectively.

I wrote an article describing this method stressing the importance for using hierarchical names. You can find my Field-naming conventions article here on Acrobat Users. Some of what follows is a repeat of a similar method, but here I add a little more for why you might choose to create a temporary work file.

Here’s how to tackle this job:

Create a blank new page

Starting fresh: Creating a new PDF file

When you create a blank new page, Acrobat assumes you want the page used for a memo or note. The new page is fine for adding text as pointed out by Donna in her article. But, we’re using our temporary file for form fields and we don’t have any need for the text box or the fonts loaded when the new page is created.

2. Save the blank page. Choose File > Save As and save the blank page. Close the file. When you save the file, you eliminate the annoying text box.

3. Reopen the blank page. Just open the File menu and you’ll find your last saved file at the top of the Recent Files list.

4. Copy the fields you want to rename and paste them into the new blank page.

5. Rename the fields. Again we use a similar method for renaming the fields. Open the Fields panel and open a context menu on the parent name for the fields you want to change. Choose Rename field from the menu and type a new name. As I said earlier, I’m changing my b name to c and all the children for that name are renamed. I also have a name used as b.budapest. I’ll change that to c.chengdu and all my fields are named for the Chengdu page.

6. The next step deviates from the first example. We need to take care of all the JavaScript calculations. To do so, I can edit all the scripts in my new blank page with my new fields. Choose Advanced > Document Processing > Edit All JavaScripts. The JavaScript Editor shown in Figure 5 opens. All I need to do is change all the occurrences of b to c and b.budapest to c.chengdu and the scripts will be calculated properly for the fields on this page. I have a few additional fixed values, and I’ll change those as well.

Figure 5

7. Copy the new fields after editing and paste them on your form. To continue, I follow the same procedure for the remaining pages in my form.

You could avoid using a temporary work file, but the more JavaScripts you have in a document the more searching you’ll have to do to make the proper changes. By isolating the scripts in a temporary file, you’ll find it much easier to locate the field names you need to change.

Try practicing on the Sample PDF file and let me know if you have any problems. File size is 6MB.

ted

Posted in Forms Tips | 7 Comments »

Creating Slide Presentations Using InDesign and Acrobat

August 16th, 2007

One thing that always surprises me when I sit in an Adobe conference room or attend a conference session led by an Adobe employee is watching a Powerpoint presentation on an LCD. I know that creating presentations is handy in PowerPoint, but after preparing presentations in layout programs and converting to PDF for more that 15 years, I find that I can whiz through the creation stage about as fast using InDesign and Acrobat as I can using PowerPoint.

I enjoy much more creative freedom using Adobe InDesign than I have using PowerPoint. With features in InDesign such as Table and Object Styles, my creation steps are reduced to a fraction of the time I once spent assembling a presentation. Furthermore, with a little refinement of some tips offered by Dallas based designer Bryan Tamayo in his article Thinking Outside the Page and reported here on Acrobat Users, I can add a little more design freedom to my slide presentations.

Take Figure 1 as an example. I find that adding icons and page numbers off the document page provide me a little more real estate for adding bullet points on the document pages.

Figure 1

Let’s take a look at the circle on the lower right side of Figure 1. To create a similar design, I start on a Master Page in Adobe InDesign. The circle is off the page and the page number is reported inside the circle. When you place objects off the page, you need to have the center-point of the object within the page boundary. To get the circle to appear off the page, we need to finesse it a little.

Draw an object in InDesign or import an object from Adobe Illustrator on to a Master Page in Adobe InDesign. For the circle in Figure 1 I add a little stroke (just a 0-point stroke with about a 1-point length) offset to the left. All you need is a dot offset from the object. When I select the objects you something similar to the selection shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2

With both objects selected I choose Object > Group. When the objects are grouped the bounding box changes to what you see in Figure 3. You can see that the center-point has now changed for the circle object and when I place the graphic off the page, I can keep the center-point within the page boundary (this is essential) while the circle is completely moved off the page.

Figure 3

My next step is to add a page number to the center of the circle. I draw a text box and right align (Command/Ctrl + Shift + R) my text. I can choose my font colors and styles from the Type menu to format the font. After formatting the font, I choose Type > Insert Special Character > Markers > Current Page Number or press Option/Alt + Shift + Command/Ctrl+N to set the text to an auto page number.

Next, move the page number to the position you want to appear on the object. Select both objects as you see in Figure 4.

Figure 4

With the objects selected, again visit the Object menu and choose Group. The bounding box and page position are shown in Figure 5. Notice that the center-point falls well within the page boundary.

Figure 5

The last step to finish off this graphic is to convert the object (now grouped as a single object) to a button and set the button action. With the object selected, choose Object > Interactive > Convert to Button.

The Button Options dialog box opens. Click the Behaviors tab and choose a Behavior from the drop down menu. For my button I want to use the button action to open the next page in my slide presentation. Therefore I choose Go To Next Page.

As a last step, click the Add button so the behavior appears in the left pane as you see in Figure 6. Then click OK.

Figure 6

If you want to change the button action to an action type that doesn’t appear in InDesign, you can do so by double clicking the button with the Select Object tool in Acrobat and click the Actions tab when the Button Properties dialog box opens. In the Actions tab you can assign any action Acrobat provides you by making selections from the Select Action drop down menu.

When you convert to PDF from InDesign, make sure you check the box for Interactive Elements in the Options area of the Export Adobe PDF dialog box (shown in Figure 7) you get when you choose File > Export.

Figure 7

Some other advantages you have in using InDesign as your original authoring program for slide presentations include converting to Adobe PDF Layers, using Table and Object styles to facilitate your design creations, and using the marvelous style sheets that only InDesign provides. Once in Acrobat you can import video and sound, add page transitions, link to other PDFs and external application documents, and of course all the other functions and features Acrobat provides you.

In regard to Adobe PDF Layers, if you happen to create multi-lingual documents you can add all graphics to a background layer in InDesign and add layers for different language versions. When you convert to PDF with the Create Acrobat Layers checkbox enabled in the Export Adobe PDF dialog box, your InDesign layers are viewed as separate layers in Acrobat/Reader. When making presentations in a different language you can toggle the layer view to the language you’re addressing.

An argument many PowerPoint users may advocate is that it’s easier to modify a presentation in PowerPoint than InDesign and recreating a PDF. I don’t see using InDesign as a problem for modifying my presentations. At times I’ve had to revise an entire presentation after adding all my links in the Acrobat PDF. Assuming the links remain the same, all I had to do is convert a second document to PDF and use the Document > Replace Pages command to replace the background pages while retaining my button links in the new PDF.

What about handouts and speaker notes? Admittedly, creating handouts and speaker notes is much easier in PowerPoint than InDesign. However, you can create these items in InDesign such as you see in Figure 8.

Just create a frame and design elements on a master page and place your PDF slide presentation using the Show Import Options item in the Place dialog box when placing your slide show on the document pages. Unfortunately, you need to place each page individually making it a much more timely task than using PowerPoint —but placing PDF pages in InDesign is a matter of just loading the cursor and scrolling pages to place the PDF pages on new InDesign pages. I find the trade-off for taking a little more time with an InDesign authored presentation not to be a hassle when I need speaker notes or handouts.

Figure 8

If I’m speaking on Adobe Acrobat and PDF, then my PDF presentations provide me much more credibility with my audience.

—ted

Posted in Acrobat 8 | 16 Comments »

Buttons on Adobe PDF Layers

August 12th, 2007

If you create a PDF document with Adobe PDF layers such as exporting layered files from Illustrator or Adobe InDesign and add a button field to the PDF, the button appears on each layer. It’s like the button has it’s own layer and you can’t assign a button field to a specific layer. This can present some problems if you want to use buttons to show/hide layers and invoke actions such as showing videos or playing sounds. If the buttons are accessible no matter what layer is in view, you have to be careful with your design so the user won’t inadvertently click the wrong button.

Take Figure 1 as an example. The showVideo button opens the video layer where a video can be played. The play buttons are left of the button that brings the video layer in view. The proximity of the buttons can be confusing if a user wants to click the Stop button and accidently clicks the showVideo button. Since the buttons are visible on all layers, you need to create a workaround to help the end user avoid confusion.

Figure 1

A workaround in previous versions of Acrobat was to add a Show/Hide action that hides buttons that should be assigned to layers not visible in the present view. When you change a layer view, you had to go about showing the buttons on the layer where you want to invoke actions respective to the visible layer.

A better way to handle the problem is to assign buttons to specific layers. However, you cannot do that in Acrobat. But fortunately with a little help with InDesign CS3, you can add buttons to individual layers that are shown with the layer visibility in Acrobat. If the layer with a button is not visible, the button along with the design elements remain hidden.

Here’s how to do it.

Open InDesign and create your layout. Draw a rectangle with the Rectangle Tool. It doesn’t matter what size you draw or apply borders or fills to the button. The size and appearance settings can be changed in Acrobat.

Select one of the rectangles you drew and open the Object menu and choose Interactive > Convert to Button. Convert each rectangle to a button that you want to appear as a button field in Acrobat. Change layer views and add more rectangles and convert to buttons. The buttons you create on layers in InDesign will be visible in Acrobat only when the given layer is in view.

When you export to PDF be certain to check the checkboxes for Create Acrobat Layers and Interactive Elements in the Export to Adobe PDF dialog box. (See Figure 2).

Figure 2

In Acrobat you can change the appearance and size of the buttons. Although InDesign is limited in the number of different actions you can assign to a button, you can change all actions in Acrobat. For example, InDesign doesn’t provide an option to Run a JavaScript. However, just use the Select Object tool in Acrobat and double click a button you created in InDesign and you can select any action that Acrobat provides you including Run a JavaScript. Changing size, appearance and actions won’t affect the layer assignment you made in InDesign.

Another nice feature you have in InDesign is creating several more shapes than the single rectangle object you draw with Acrobat’s Button tool. Create a rectangle in InDesign and open the Object menu. Choose Convert Shape and a submenu opens with nine different options for an object appearance as shown in Figure 3. Any one of these objects can be converted to a button and the button appearance is shown in Acrobat.

Unfortunately you can’t change button appearances on objects other than rectangles in Acrobat. If you want a border color and/or fill applied to the button shape for all buttons other than a rectangle, you need to add the appearances in InDesign. Figure 3 shows the options choices you have in InDesign with borders and fills applied before exporting to PDF.

Figure 3

What about Text fields? Unfortunately we don’t yet have an option in InDesign to convert a text frame to an Acrobat text form field. Any fields you create in Acrobat will be visible on all layers.

Posted in Acrobat 8 | 2 Comments »

The FedEx/Kinkos Boo-Hoo

August 10th, 2007

I remember years ago when I had total control over my computer. No one —not even Microsoft, Adobe, or Apple, forced me to conform to certain configurations for my hardware and software. Those were glorious days when I could easily network my computers without having a bunch of security forced upon me. After all, they were my computers, I used them, and I wasn’t threatened by anyone breaking into my house and trying to steal data off my network. Heck, anyone who broke into my house was more likely to steal the computers!

Much of my freedom of choice was taken away due to complaints by IT managers who required more security in their workplaces. Hence, I was forced to add log-ons and passwords to configure my home systems even though I didn’t need it. The complaints of those representing the many outweighed the wishes of the few. As time passed by, I experienced more limits in my personal freedom for configuring my systems due to the whining of IT managers and the lack of creativity of software developers. Rather than offer choices for end users, we simply had to conform to new implementations of security that satisfied the desires of those barking the loudest.

Take Acrobat as an example. In version 8 we lost all those nice ExecMenu Items in the program. Rather than provide users the ability to disable certain features as a user controlled option, Adobe chose to wipe out a number of commands because some IT managers saw certain features as a security breach. Those who wanted access to all the commands were left out.

In Acrobat 6 we had a little plug-in that enabled us to search the Internet for PDF files using Yahoo. That changed to searching the Internet using Google in Acrobat 7. In Acrobat 8, we don’t have any plug-in to search the Internet for PDFs via a button using either Yahoo or Google. No doubt Google complained during the Acrobat 6 life cycle and Yahoo complained during the Acrobat 7 life cycle. The answer to the problem of course is, let’s just take the thing away from all the users and everyone will be happy.

Now in Acrobat 8, we have the entire printing industry complaining about a little plug-in that made it easy for end users to get some files duplicated at a copy shop. If I’m speaking in New York City, I could easily hit the FedEx/Kinkos button on the Reader/Acrobat toolbar to order some copies of handouts and have them ready when I arrive at JFK. Of course I could do a Google search (oops… maybe I should just say search because Yahoo may get on my case) to find a print shop. But having the button on the Reader/Acrobat toolbar just made it a little easier for me. Isn’t that what computers are supposed to do —make life easier for us? Well, the print industry did enough whining about the unfairness of giving FedEx/Kinkos an advantage and once again the answer is to just take it away from all of us to satisfy the needs of the complainers.

When do you suppose that a software developer will start to make efforts to satisfy the needs of the minorities as well as meet the demands of the masses? A little creativity such as providing a plug-in manager that could let us users decide whether we want to use FedEx/Kinkos, Sir Speedy, PIP, or some other print service puts more control back into our hands.

What are your thoughts?

Posted in Acrobat 8 | 4 Comments »