Certificate in Introduction to Adobe Acrobat 9 Online Course

Imagine taking a document, a spreadsheet, an image or two, and a few slides from a presentation and then putting them all together into one file—complete with page numbers, a custom footer, and even some animation. Does it sound too good to be true? It's not! Adobe Acrobat 9 allows you to do all this and more. By the end of this first lesson, you'll know how to make your way around Acrobat 9 Pro and set different program preferences. You'll even make your first PDF file from an image (a logo for the fictional business we'll follow through the course).

Creating a PDF Document

Where do new PDF files come from? To answer that question, we'll start Lesson 2 with a discussion on planning your project's workflow. You'll try out several different methods to create a PDF document using common programs including Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. You'll find out how to work with PDFMaker, a toolbar that Acrobat installs in some Microsoft programs that helps you choose settings and create PDF files automatically. You'll also work w

ith the Adobe PDF Printer, which allows you to produce PDF files from programs that don't export them directly.

Designing a New PDF File

Today, instead of using PDF documents converted from many different types of files, you'll see how to start a new PDF file from scratch. We'll use the New Document Editor to set up pages and margins, and format the text. Along with typing text in the page, we'll try importing some text from another file. Then you'll work with the TouchUp tools to manipulate the content on the page and add some graphics. Before the end of the lesson, you'll dive in to the workings of a PDF file and learn about file information, called metadata.

Changing and Moving Pages in a PDF File

Mixing and matching—moving pages from one document to another—is a common way to edit PDF files. Acrobat 9 Pro offers a number of techniques for combining and changing page content. You'll start today with simple files, and then you'll see how to add and delete pages, as well as learn specialized ways to slip a new page into a document without disturbing any of the elements, such as links or bookmarks that you've added to the page. You'll combine documents (and even specific pages from documents) into one PDF document, and you'll find out how to resize or crop pages so that they all match. Finally, you'll discover how to add password protection that lets you specify whether users can print or use contents from your files.

Applying Common Page Elements

It's one thing to bring together content from different types of files. It's quite another to make the content look like it belongs together! In this lesson, you'll learn about Acrobat features that help make your document look more uniform. You'll work with backgrounds and watermarks that can be either text or graphics. You'll see how to use headers and footers that you can customize using your own text, choices of fonts, colors, and so on. You'll also use the Snapshot tool to create a new PDF document from a page segment. By the end of this lesson, you'll be able to easily make all your documents look put together, whether they started out as two files or 10!

Inserting Bookmarks for Navigation

When you work with a table of contents in Acrobat and many other programs, you click a link on the page to take you to a certain part of the document. But then how do you get back to the table of contents to find another topic? Acrobat 9 Pro solves that problem by using bookmarks. Today you'll learn about building and displaying bookmarks in a separate panel that stays visible while the file is open. You'll discover different ways to create bookmarks and customize their appearance to match your document. Then we'll take a look at adding attachments to your PDF document. If you've ever had to send someone an e-mail and had trouble remembering if you sent all the necessary attachments, you'll like this feature. It allows you to add extra content like documents and images to one PDF document.

Navigating With Links

Everyone knows how to use links on a Web page: Just click them to get to the linked page. In this lesson, you'll learn about using links in a PDF file. You'll start working with Acrobat JavaScript—and you don't need to be a programmer to use it—to add multiple links and work with custom actions. Like Web links, links in Acrobat can open another PDF document, show another page, or send an e-mail. Next, you'll find out about linking to Web pages from a PDF file and downloading a Web page to create or add to a document right in Acrobat. And we won't just talk about text links—you'll also create a link from an image.

Designing a PDF Form

Did you know that Acrobat 9 includes an Artificial Intelligence module? While it can't perform any science fiction magic, it can look at a document, decide where you'd like to have form fields, and then add and name the fields for you automatically. Today you'll see how it works with PDF forms. You'll learn about using the Form Wizard to produce a form for you, and then we'll look at some ways to add more form fields. You'll have a chance to calculate prices for different products in the form you create and even build a button that changes its appearance when you click it.

Adding Comments to a PDF Document

Collaborating on a document—sharing it with others and gathering their feedback—is one of the most popular uses of Acrobat. In this lesson, you discover how to use common commenting tools and customize the program to make it simpler for you to work. We'll go through each group of tools and check out the corresponding group of commenting preferences along the way. You'll first learn about Sticky Notes and customizing how you view comments. Next, you'll use the Highlights and Callouts and decide how and where you like to read the comment contents. We'll finish by trying out Stamp comments and making a custom stamp.

Tracking Document Reviews

Once you've learned to add and configure comments, you need something to do with them. So today you'll work with a document review. You'll see how to start a shared review, send e-mail invitations, and work online at Acrobat.com. You'll learn how to set up and manage a review, including different ways to work with comments.

Collecting Forms and Collaborating Online

In this lesson, we'll take your collaboration skills to the next level. First, you'll discover how to distribute the form you created in an earlier lesson. Along the way, you'll see how to use Tracker, an automated feature that monitors your form's distribution process. Acrobat 9 Pro also includes a Portfolio feature that you'll work with as you collect form results. The Portfolio includes some tools that let you filter and sort your data and export it to other programs. Then you'll find out how to chat in real time with others using Collaborate Live. Instead of just working on your desktop, you'll learn how to work online in your own ConnectNow Web conferencing space.

Presenting Information in a Portfolio

Just when you think you couldn't possibly learn any more ways to combine and break down documents in Acrobat, we'll talk about Portfolios! We'll start by preparing the files for the final Portfolio project. You'll find out how to split a document into several parts using a couple of different methods. Once we've prepared the files, we'll start a Portfolio. Then you'll try out different appearance features, add some images, and work with color schemes. Finally, you'll learn how to manage the content of your Portfolio, such as adding folders and moving files. By the end of this lesson, you'll be ready to use Acrobat to combine, create, and collaborate on documents like never before!