Hot Stuff

Win a Subscription to "InDesign Magazine"
5 Winners Selected.
The Big Picture Magazine - FREE
Real-world solutions to design challenges
Get Creative Videocast
New every week. Watch what's important to you.
Subscribe to PDF How-Tos PDF How-Tos
HerGeekness Says: Convert Any File Part III
How-Tos: Written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion on September 7, 2008
You've now converted that funky file to a PDF. It's time to tackle the final step: extracting assets from that PDF.
Protect Your PDFs
How-Tos: Written by Joel Geraci on July 23, 2008
Digital files can end up in the strangest places. Before you send another PDF to a client, coworker, or anyone else, find out how and when to password-protect your work.
Bake Up a Batch of PDF Files
How-Tos: Written by Donna Baker on June 2, 2008
Open a file, change the header, save the file to a new location, close the file... repeat more times than you can count. If that sounds familiar, help is on the way.
Slim Down Your PDFs
How-Tos: Written by Donna Baker on May 7, 2008
Follow these tips to shrink a PDF's file size and help it display faster.
InDesign Transparency: No Longer the Forbidden Fruit
How-Tos: Written by Mordy Golding Renee Dustman on April 28, 2008
With this advice, you can reap the rewards of transparency and never hear those dreaded words, "It won't print!"
Git Along, Li'l PDF: How to Stamp Proofs with Your Own Brand
How-Tos: Written by Pariah Burke on October 17, 2007
Acrobat's Stamp tool can prevent a lot of confusion if you use it for things like explaining Lorem Ipsum placeholder text and FPO images on client proofs. But rather than settling for Acrobat's generic stamps, you can create your own. Yeehaw!
Collaborate with Acrobat
How-Tos: Written by Taz Tally on July 30, 2007
Whether you're working with offsite team members or gathering feedback from a client, Acrobat's commenting and reviewing tools are unbeatable. Here's how to use them in a powerful, flexible collaborative workflow.
Start Smart: Create Quality PDFs
How-Tos: Written by Joseph Marin Tracey Ryan on March 2, 2007
The secret to banishing bad print jobs is to make PDFs the right way.
Acrobat How-To: Reuse Table Information in a PDF
How-Tos: Written by Donna Baker on October 9, 2006
You need text or images that are in a table, but all you have is a PDF, not the source document. Are you out of luck? Not if you read this how-to!
A Trio of Acrobat Tips
How-Tos: Written by Dan Shea on August 16, 2006
You can attach companion files, flatten PDFs with editable objects, and tile one PDF across two screens.
Acrobat Tips: The Ins and Outs of Document Review
How-Tos: Written by Dan Shea on April 28, 2006
When you're sharing comps with colleagues and clients more than a hallway away, sending PDFs via email for review is the fastest and easiest route. Here are tips for sending the PDFs so any recipent can comment; comparing differences between PDFs before and after the review, and spell-checking your comments.
Customize and Shrink PDFs Exported from QuarkXPress 6.5
How-Tos: Written by Samuel John Klein on April 5, 2006
No need to fear these Jaws: They bring native PDF production under the QuarkXPress hood.
Quick Tips for Acrobat 7
How-Tos: Written by Dan Shea on January 6, 2006
Acrobat isn't as complex as some other Adobe apps ([cough] Photoshop [cough]) but you've got to admit that Acrobat is getting deeper with every version! That's why we've compiled a bevy of quick tips to give you back control.
What's the Problem With This PDF?
How-Tos: Written by David van Driessche on September 16, 2005
Your print shop tells you to send them a PDF because it's less trouble than native file formats and the linked images and typefaces. But then the print shop says your PDF is problematic. What do you do?
Acrobat Tip: Make Last-Minute Corrections
How-Tos: Written by Donna Baker on June 24, 2005
When you need to correct an Acrobat PDF but can't or don't want to open the original file, try the TouchUp Object tool. Here's how.
Acrobat How-to: Share the Love With Acrobat 7.0
How-Tos: Written on April 22, 2005
Before the current version of Adobe Acrobat, only those who paid for the program could use its commenting tools. People with just the free Reader were left out in the cold and out of all online collaboration and review processes. Now, thanks to Acrobat 7.0 and this easy tutorial, you can bring everyone into the fold.
Acrobat How-To: Previewing Color Separations Onscreen
How-Tos: Written on February 16, 2005
This tutorial shows you how to "soft-proof" your document before you send it off to your printer. Not only will you catch costly errors, but your neighborhood prepress professional will love you for making this effort.
Acrobat How-to: Softproofing PDFs with Acrobat's Preflight Tools
How-Tos: Written by John Clifford on October 27, 2004
Even as PDF is becoming a preferred format for final delivery of print-ready files, many creative professionals the technical glitches that can arise in this relatively unfamiliar workflow. That's why Adobe built preflight tools into Acrobat 6 Professional. Here's how to spot common errors.
Acrobat How-to: Traditional Proofreading in PDF
How-Tos: Written by John Clifford on September 24, 2004
While the so-called paperless workflow has many benefits, some things are just better done on paper, like proofreading and copy-editing, for instance. Is it possible to replicate traditional methods in a digital environment? You can with Acrobat's markup tools.
Acrobat How-To: Setting PDF Open Options
How-Tos: Written by Donna Baker on June 15, 2004
Authors of PDF documents know that controlling the reader's viewing environment important. That's where the Initial View properties come in. See how to set these viewing options in Acrobat 6 to make a good first impression.