User Guide

Opening PDFs

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Adobe Acrobat

Adobe Acrobat

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  1. Acrobat User Guide
  2. Introduction to Acrobat
    1. Access Acrobat from desktop, mobile, web
    2. Introducing the new Acrobat experience
    3. What's new in Acrobat
    4. Keyboard shortcuts
    5. System Requirements
    6. Download Adobe Acrobat
    7. Download Acrobat | Enterprise term or VIP license
    8. Download Acrobat | Enterprise term or VIP license
    9. Download Acrobat 64-bit for Windows
    10. Install Adobe Acrobat Reader | Windows
    11. Install Adobe Acrobat Reader | Mac OS
    12. Install updates for Acrobat and Reader
    13. Update your Acrobat to the latest version
    14. Download Acrobat 2020
    15. Release Notes | Acrobat, Reader
  3. Workspace
    1. Workspace basics
    2. Opening and viewing PDFs
      1. Opening PDFs
      2. Navigating PDF pages
      3. Viewing PDF preferences
      4. Adjusting PDF views
      5. Enable thumbnail preview of PDFs
      6. Display PDF in browser
    3. Working with online storage accounts
      1. Access files from Box
      2. Access files from Dropbox
      3. Access files from OneDrive
      4. Access files from SharePoint
      5. Access files from Google Drive
    4. Acrobat and macOS
    5. Acrobat notifications
    6. Grids, guides, and measurements in PDFs
    7. Asian, Cyrillic, and right-to-left text in PDFs
    8. Adobe Acrobat for Outlook
    9. Set Acrobat as default PDF viewer
    10. Explore Acrobat tools
  4. Creating PDFs
    1. Overview of PDF creation
    2. Overview of PDF creation
    3. Create PDFs with Acrobat
    4. Create PDFs with PDFMaker
    5. Using the Adobe PDF printer
    6. Converting web pages to PDF
    7. Creating PDFs with Acrobat Distiller
    8. Adobe PDF conversion settings
    9. PDF fonts
  5. Editing PDFs
    1. Edit text in PDFs
    2. Edit images or objects in a PDF
    3. Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages
    4. Edit scanned PDFs
    5. Enhance document photos captured using a mobile camera
    6. Optimizing PDFs
    7. PDF properties and metadata
    8. Links and attachments in PDFs
    9. PDF layers
    10. Page thumbnails and bookmarks in PDFs
    11. PDFs converted to web pages
    12. Setting up PDFs for a presentation
    13. PDF articles
    14. Geospatial PDFs
    15. Applying actions and scripts to PDFs
    16. Change the default font for adding text
    17. Delete pages from a PDF
    18. Edit a signed PDF | FAQ
  6. Scan and OCR
    1. Scan documents to PDF
    2. Enhance document photos
    3. Troubleshoot scanner issues when scanning using Acrobat
  7. Forms
    1. PDF forms basics
    2. Create a form from scratch in Acrobat
    3. Create and distribute PDF forms
    4. Fill in PDF forms
    5. PDF form field properties
    6. Fill and sign PDF forms
    7. Setting action buttons in PDF forms
    8. Publishing interactive PDF web forms
    9. PDF form field basics
    10. PDF barcode form fields
    11. Collect and manage PDF form data
    12. About forms tracker
    13. PDF forms help
    14. Send PDF forms to recipients using email or an internal server
  8. Combining files
    1. Combine or merge files into single PDF
    2. Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages
    3. Add headers, footers, and Bates numbering to PDFs
    4. Crop PDF pages
    5. Add watermarks to PDFs
    6. Add backgrounds to PDFs
    7. Working with component files in a PDF Portfolio
    8. Publish and share PDF Portfolios
    9. Overview of PDF Portfolios
    10. Create and customize PDF Portfolios
  9. Sharing, reviews, and commenting
    1. Share and track PDFs online
    2. Mark up text with edits
    3. Preparing for a PDF review
    4. Starting a PDF review
    5. Hosting shared reviews on SharePoint or Office 365 sites
    6. Participating in a PDF review
    7. Add comments to PDFs
    8. Adding a stamp to a PDF
    9. Approval workflows
    10. Managing comments | view, reply, print
    11. Importing and exporting comments
    12. Tracking and managing PDF reviews
  10. Saving and exporting PDFs
    1. Saving PDFs
    2. Convert PDF to Word
    3. Convert PDF to PPTX
    4. Convert PDF to XLSX or XML
    5. Convert PDF to JPEG
    6. Convert PDF to TIFF
    7. Convert PDF to PNG
    8. Convert or export PDFs to other file formats
    9. File format options for PDF export
    10. Reusing PDF content
  11. Security
    1. Enhanced security setting for PDFs
    2. Securing PDFs with passwords
    3. Manage Digital IDs
    4. Securing PDFs with certificates
    5. Opening secured PDFs
    6. Removing sensitive content from PDFs
    7. Setting up security policies for PDFs
    8. Choosing a security method for PDFs
    9. Security warnings when a PDF opens
    10. Securing PDFs with Adobe Experience Manager
    11. Protected View feature for PDFs
    12. Overview of security in Acrobat and PDFs
    13. JavaScripts in PDFs as a security risk
    14. Attachments as security risks
    15. Allow or block links in PDFs
    16. Allow or block links in PDFs
    17. Edit secured PDFs
  12. Electronic signatures
    1. Sign PDF documents
    2. Capture your signature on mobile and use it everywhere
    3. Send documents for e-signatures
    4. Create a web form
    5. Request e-signatures in bulk
    6. Collect online payments
    7. Brand your account
    8. About certificate signatures
    9. Certificate-based signatures
    10. Validating digital signatures
    11. Adobe Approved Trust List
    12. Manage trusted identities
  13. Printing
    1. Basic PDF printing tasks
    2. Basic PDF printing tasks
    3. Print Booklets and PDF Portfolios
    4. Advanced PDF print settings
    5. Print to PDF
    6. Printing color PDFs (Acrobat Pro)
    7. Printing PDFs in custom sizes
    8. Scale or resize PDF pages
  14. Accessibility, tags, and reflow
    1. Create and verify PDF accessibility
    2. Accessibility features in PDFs
    3. Reading Order tool for PDFs
    4. Reading PDFs with reflow and accessibility features
    5. Edit document structure with the Content and Tags panels
    6. Creating accessible PDFs
    7. Cloud-based auto-tagging
  15. Searching and indexing
    1. Creating PDF indexes
    2. Searching PDFs
  16. Multimedia and 3D models
    1. Add audio, video, and interactive objects to PDFs
    2. Adding 3D models to PDFs (Acrobat Pro)
    3. Displaying 3D models in PDFs
    4. Interacting with 3D models
    5. Measuring 3D objects in PDFs
    6. Setting 3D views in PDFs
    7. Enable 3D content in PDF
    8. Adding multimedia to PDFs
    9. Commenting on 3D designs in PDFs
    10. Playing video, audio, and multimedia formats in PDFs
    11. Add comments to videos
  17. Print production tools (Acrobat Pro)
    1. Print production tools overview
    2. Printer marks and hairlines
    3. Previewing output
    4. Transparency flattening
    5. Color conversion and ink management
    6. Trapping color
  18. Preflight (Acrobat Pro)
    1. PDF/X-, PDF/A-, and PDF/E-compliant files
    2. Preflight profiles
    3. Advanced preflight inspections
    4. Preflight reports
    5. Viewing preflight results, objects, and resources
    6. Output intents in PDFs
    7. Correcting problem areas with the Preflight tool
    8. Automating document analysis with droplets or preflight actions
    9. Analyzing documents with the Preflight tool
    10. Additional checks in the Preflight tool
    11. Preflight libraries
    12. Preflight variables
  19. Color management
    1. Keeping colors consistent
    2. Color settings
    3. Color-managing documents
    4. Working with color profiles
    5. Understanding color management
  20. Troubleshoot
    1. Troubleshoot PDF printing in Acrobat and Acrobat Reader
    2. Troubleshoot PDF printing in Acrobat and Acrobat Reader
    3. Adobe Acrobat license has either expired or not been activated
    4. Adobe Acrobat license has either expired or not been activated
    5. Edit PDF forms created in LiveCycle Designer
    6. Insufficient data for an image error on Adobe Acrobat
    7. Resolve errors related to the AcroCEF/RdrCEF processes of Acrobat or Acrobat Reader

You can open a PDF in many ways: from within the Acrobat application, from your email application, from your file system, or on a network from within a web browser.

Open a PDF in the application

  1. Start Acrobat and do one of the following:

    • Open a file from the Home > Recent view.

    • Select Open from the hamburger menu (Windows) or File (macOS). In the Open dialog box, select one or more filenames and select Open. PDF documents usually have the extension .pdf.

    Note

    To open file types such as DOCX, PPT or XLSX, go to Menu (Window) or File (macOS) and then select Open. Select All types from Show drop-down menu. The file will automatically be converted into a PDF for viewing and editing.

Open a PDF from the desktop or within another application

  1. Do one of the following:

    • To open a PDF attached to an email message, open the message and double-click the PDF icon.

    • To open a PDF linked to an open web page, click the PDF file link. The PDF usually opens in the web browser.

    • Double-click the PDF file icon in your file system.

    Note

    In Mac OS, you sometimes cannot open a PDF created in Windows by double-clicking the icon. Instead, choose File > Open With > Acrobat.

Open a PDF in a web browser

When PDFs open in a web page, they open in Read mode. Read mode displays the PDF without the menus, panes, or toolbars visible. Near the bottom of the window, a floating toolbar appears with basic functionality for viewing document.

  • To show the toolbar, roll your cursor near the bottom of the window.
  • To page through the PDF, use the navigation buttons in the toolbar.
  • To close Read mode and display the work area, select the Acrobat icon  in the toolbar.
  • To disable Read mode within the browser, open the Acrobat or Reader Preferences. Select Preferences from the hamburger menu (Windows), or Acrobat/Acrobat Reader(macOS) in the top left. In the Preferences dialog box, Select Internet from the left pane. Deselect Display In Read Mode by default.
Note

If you have more than one Adobe PDF application on your computer, you can specify which one is used to open PDFs. See the Select Default PDF Handler in General preferences.

About viewing PDFs in a web browser

Options in the web browser control how you view a PDF, either within the browser or directly in Acrobat or Reader. To change the current display behavior, see the browser documentation on managing add-ons or plug-ins. If you open PDFs in Acrobat outside the browser, you cannot use the preference Allow Fast Web View in a browser.

Because keyboard commands can be mapped to the web browser, some Acrobat shortcuts cannot be available. Similarly, you may need to use the tools and commands in the Acrobat toolbar rather than the browser toolbar or menu bar. For example, to print a PDF document, use the Print button in the Acrobat toolbar rather than the Print command in the browser. (In Microsoft Internet Explorer, you can choose File > Print, Edit > Copy, and Edit > Find On This Page on the Internet Explorer toolbar.)

Note

Having multiple versions of Acrobat or Adobe Reader installed on the same computer is not recommended. Mixed versions on your system can prevent you from viewing PDFs in a web browser. Examples include Acrobat XI with Adobe Reader X, or Acrobat 9 with Reader XI, and so on. For more information about coexisting installations, see this TechNote.

Internet preferences

Display In Read Mode By Default

Select to display PDFs in the browser without the menus, panes, or toolbars visible.

Allow Fast Web View

Select to allow page-at-a-time downloading for PDFs that have been saved with Fast Web View enabled. With Fast Web View turned on, a web server can send just the requested page, rather than the entire PDF.

Allow Speculative Downloading In The Background

Choose to allow the browser to continue downloading PDF pages from the web, even after the first page displays.

Connection Speed

Choose a connection speed from the menu. The connection speed helps Acrobat or other media provide a smooth display when content is read on the Internet.

Internet Settings [or Network Settings]

Click to open the Internet or network connection dialog box or panel for your computer. For more information, consult your operating system Help, your Internet service provider, or your local network administrator.

Reopen PDFs from the last Acrobat session

Acrobat can automatically reopen PDFs from the last session on launch. To set the preference, do the following:

  1. Select Preferences from the hamburger menu (Windows) or Acrobat/Acrobat Reader(macOS) in the top left.

  2. In the Preferences dialog box's left pane, select General, then select the Open PDFs From the last session On Acrobat Launch.

    Open PDFs from last session on Acrobat launch

  3. Select OK.

Star a file

You can star a file to mark it as favorite and open starred files separately:

  1. Go to Acrobat Home view by selecting Home    from the upper left.

  2. Hover over the file you want to star. A star option appears. Select star this file   .

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