Make it match

by Donna L. Baker, ACE, Baker Communications

You don't have to produce PDF versions of your e-mails that conform to a standard letter-sized page with typical margins. Sometimes, it makes sense to configure the page options to match the rest of a job or project. Specify the page size, orientation and margins in the Acrobat PDFMaker dialog box. For example:

• If you routinely convert e-mails that reference legal documents, change the page size to a legal size and process the e-mails. That way, the contents are coordinated if you need to print e-mails to include with other documentation printed on legal-sized pages.

• Some of us work with landscape-oriented pages, such as spreadsheets, tabular data or graphical data. Use a Landscape orientation for your PDF documents generated from e-mail. The consistency of presentation makes it simpler to view and print your documents.

Lots of people depend on written lists and notes for planning their work, often including information from e-mails. Instead of scribbling notes in the page margins of a PDF file generated from e-mail messages, change the PDFMaker Margins settings. Increase the size of the Top or Bottom margins to give yourself ample space for writing.

Keep in mind that the last settings specified remain active until you change them again. If you have different customizations for different projects or types of work, make sure to check the settings in the Acrobat PDFMaker dialog box before creating new archive files or appending more content to existing files.

> See related article: Drowning in e-mail?