Create easy-to-use PDFs that perform

Portable Document Format (PDF) files give you a great way to send documents that recipients can view exactly as you designed them. But how do you make PDFs that work best for your specific application?

With the variety of options in Adobe® Acrobat®, you can create PDFs that fit precisely what you need — from protected documents to interactive forms. Or you can easily get lost.

Read on to discover how to make better PDFs and get the most out of this versatile software.

Get the right Acrobat product

Adobe makes Acrobat in a variety of flavors, but the three primary versions are Reader, Standard and Professional.

• Reader — Free, but allows only viewing, searching and printing documents (but not creating PDFs). Most users have this version on their computers, so you can feel sure that those receiving your PDFs can view them. Download Acrobat Reader here for free.
• Standard — This basic version lets you create a PDF from any application that prints (Microsoft® Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, etc.). You can add pages to a PDF, merge two into one, leave comments, password protect the file and more.
• Professional — The top-of-the-line version allows you to do everything Standard does, plus create forms, use advanced editing and create workflows that automatically e-mail the document to your choice of recipients and let them attach comments.

Another version, called Elements, is geared toward large corporations with many users and offers features similar to Reader, plus PDF creation and password protection.

See the complete comparison chart of features in all Acrobat versions.

Decide how the PDF will be used

Before you touch the keyboard, you need to decide what the PDF will be used for. What function will it serve? Will it be printed or simply e-mailed? This will help you determine how to format and save it.

• Print — If the PDF will be printed, such as a final production sent to a printer or a design to be approved or marked up, Acrobat will let you retain the fonts and will reproduce graphics well.
• E-mail — If you’re simply creating a file to e-mail information, you can optimize it for the smallest file size possible. Graphics will be compressed (which may lower image quality) and fonts will not be embedded (which may make the text look different).
• Interactive (forms) — If you want to distribute forms, you can create a PDF that allows recipients to enter their information and send the form back to you.

Create PDFs

In order to create good-quality PDFs, you need at least the Standard version of Acrobat. Some applications can also create PDFs — for example, CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite, QuarkXPress® and any Macintosh OS X application that allows printing. However, the quality of PDFs created by these applications may be inferior to those created by Acrobat (i.e. fonts may not be embedded so type may not reproduce accurately, image quality may be poorer, etc.)

When creating your PDF on a system with Acrobat Standard or Professional installed, start by opening the document you want to convert into a PDF. Select Print from the File menu. In the place where you select your printer, select Adobe PDF. On a Mac, choose PDF Options in the Copies & Pages drop-down menu. Specify the quality of your PDF in the Adobe PDF Settings drop-down menu. In Windows, click the Preference or Properties button and then specify the quality of your PDF in the Default Settings drop-down menu.

The three most useful quality settings are:

• Press Quality – Use this for saving PDFs that will be printed. This will give you a high-resolution PDF with graphics and fonts that look exactly as you intend them to. File size may be large.
• Smallest File Size – Use this for files that need to be small because you intend to e-mail them. Many e-mail servers do not allow large files, and many PDFs of layouts will be very large and may cause problems for the people receiving them. This format will not embed the fonts, so use it only for those people you are sure already have the fonts you used in the file.
• Standard – Use this when you need a good overall PDF with reasonably good graphics and reasonable file size. This is the happy medium.

Set security options

If the content of the PDF is sensitive, you can add security options to the file that will prevent other users from doing things with it that you don’t want. Using the Standard and Professional versions, you can password-protect a variety of functions.

To set password protection, go to the File menu and select Document Properties. Select the Security tab. (Or you may have a Security button on your toolbar.) There you can assign passwords for allowing:

• Opening the PDF
• Editing text
• Printing
• Printing comments (see below)

You can assign different passwords for each function if you want to allow certain people specific functions but not allow others.

For more information, download Adobe’s PDF security guide.

Add comments

Commenting allows users to leave notes and other items to flag specific parts of your document. They are allowed by default, but you can disable them in your security settings. Users will need Standard or Professional versions to use commenting features; comments do not change the PDF content or layout.

Recipients use the Comments & Markups button, which includes:

• Notes to type their messages
• Drawing Markup Tools such as arrows, shapes and text boxes
• Commenting Tools that allow users to highlight text and use stamps such as Approved, Received, Sign Here, Void, Confidential, Draft and more

Create forms

Another useful feature of PDFs is the ability to create forms that users can fill out electronically, such as vacation requests, expense reports, etc. Users will need Standard or Professional to save a form with their information; users with Reader can print filled-out forms but not save them.

To create forms, use Adobe Designer (Windows only), a separate application that comes with Professional. Or you can go to the Tools menu, select Advanced Editing and select Show Forms Toolbar. Using the toolbar you can create text fields, list boxes (drop-down menus), programmable buttons, checkboxes and more.

Learn more

See these useful links for more information on Acrobat features and products:

Adobe Acrobat main page
More on Adobe Acrobat PDF features
Acrobat FAQ page

PDFs give you a wide variety of ways to send layouts, forms and any other documents that nearly any recipient can use. Master the basics and you’re on your way to trouble-free PDFs.

Need better results? Creating and using PDFs is just one business communications solution we’ve provided over the past 25 years. To explore some innovative ways to reach your audience, e-mail Matt Harlow or call 800-800-9547.

Ideas are our product. We work to analyze your markets, isolate your key brand benefits and send clear, focused messages right to your target audience. Messages that build your brand image and achieve what you’re really looking for … measurable results.
We call it Communication with insight.^sm