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Share and track PDFs online

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  1. Acrobat User Guide
  2. Introduction to Acrobat
    1. Access Acrobat from desktop, mobile, web
    2. What's new in Acrobat
    3. Keyboard shortcuts
    4. System Requirements
  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
  4. Creating PDFs
    1. Overview of PDF creation
    2. Create PDFs with Acrobat
    3. Create PDFs with PDFMaker
    4. Using the Adobe PDF printer
    5. Converting web pages to PDF
    6. Creating PDFs with Acrobat Distiller
    7. Adobe PDF conversion settings
    8. 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. Action Wizard (Acrobat Pro)
    12. PDFs converted to web pages
    13. Setting up PDFs for a presentation
    14. PDF articles
    15. Geospatial PDFs
    16. Applying actions and scripts to PDFs
    17. Change the default font for adding text
    18. Delete pages from a PDF
  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 JPG
    4. Convert or export PDFs to other file formats
    5. File format options for PDF export
    6. 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
  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. Print Booklets and PDF Portfolios
    3. Advanced PDF print settings
    4. Print to PDF
    5. Printing color PDFs (Acrobat Pro)
    6. Printing PDFs in custom sizes
  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
  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

You can quickly share a link to a PDF document with others for viewing or commenting. The document shared as a link opens in any browser, on any device. The document is stored securely in Adobe Document Cloud. Recipients get an email with a link, and they can click the link to view and comment on the document in a browser; no sign-in required.

Watch a quick video tutorial and get started

Share PDFs

Open a PDF in Acrobat or Acrobat Reader. The sharing tools are displayed in the top-right corner of the tool bar.

Share PDF files tools

You can share a PDF file using any one of the following methods:

An anonymous or public link makes the files accessible to anyone who clicks the link. Also, the detailed tracking information is not available for files shared using public links.

  1. Click the Share A Link To This File icon ().

    Share a link to the file

  2. By default, the Allow Comments switch is turned on. To share the file only for viewing, click the switch to turn it off. Click Create Link.

    Copy link and share

    The Get a Link prompt displays the progress.

    File upload and sharing progress

  3. The link is created and copied by default. The shared file is open in Acrobat viewer after the link is created. You can also perform any of the following actions from the right pane:

    • Add People with whom you want to share the document
    • Unshare File
    • Save A Copy of the file
    Share the created link with other recipients

The detailed tracking information is not available for files shared as attachments.

  1. Click the Send File By Email icon ( ).

    Send your PDF file by email

  2. In the Send by Email dialog, do one of the following:

    • Choose Outlook if it is your default email application.
    • Select Webmail in the drop-down list and then select Add Gmail. Enter your email address and click OK. Enter the password when prompted.
    • Select Webmail, and then select Add Other email address you use. Enter the email address, password, IMAP, SMTP settings in the Add Webmail Account dialog and click Add.

    The Attach a Link switch is turned on by default; a shared view-only link to the PDF will be added in the email body. If you want to attach the PDF instead of the link, click the switch to turn it off.

  3. Click Next. Enter the recipient's email address and send.

The detailed tracking information is available for files shared using a personalized link to individuals.

  1. Click the Share This File With Others icon ().

    Invite people for viewing or commenting

  2. The Name and Message fields are just like the ones you use for sending an email and appear to your recipients in the same way. Enter desired information, and then click Send.

    Your recipients get an email notifying them that the file is shared with them.

Recipients experience

Recipients get an email notifying them that the file is shared with them. The email contains the Open button and a link to the shared document. Clicking the link or the button opens the document in a browser. Recipients can also download the document if necessary.

 See the example screenshot below showing the email notification received by a recipient.  

Received link in email
The email notification with a link to the shared document

Track shared files

The files that you have recently shared are listed in Home > Recent. When the recipient views the file, you get a notification in Acrobat and an email. To view and track all the files shared for viewing, do the following:

  1. Click Home, and do one of the following:

    • To view the files shared by you for view or review, click Shared By You.
    • To view the files received for view or review, click Shared By Others.

    All the files shared for viewing are displayed along with the following information:

    • Name: Name of the file shared for view.
    • Sharing: Shows if the file is shared or unshared.
    • Date Modified: The last time when the file was modified.
    Operations on shared files

  2. To view the details of a file, select the file. A thumbnail of the file is displayed in the right pane. The action board in the right pane displays the actions you can perform on the file. The displayed actions vary based on whether you have shared the file, or received the file for viewing as shown below:

    Note:

    Effective December 1st 2020, the tracking and notification feature will no longer apply to the download of shared files.

    Actions on files shared By You

    • Add People to the shared file.
    • Unshare File if you would like to prevent anyone else from viewing or downloading the file.
    • Copy Shared Link and share with other recipients for viewing.
    • Delete the shared file permanently from the Adobe Document Cloud.
    Actions on files shared for viewing
    Actions on files shared by you

    Actions on files Shared By Others

    • View the timestamp of the file received.
    • Copy Shared Link to either share it with other recipients or open the file on browser.
    • Remove Me to remove yourself as a reviewer of the shared file.
    • Report Abuse for any inappropriate content received.
       
    Actions for files received for viewing
    Actions for files shared by others

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