User Guide Cancel

Viewing preflight results, objects, and resources (Acrobat Pro)

Search
Adobe Acrobat

Adobe Acrobat

Open on web
  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 64-bit for Windows
    9. Install Adobe Acrobat Reader | Windows
    10. Install Adobe Acrobat Reader | Mac OS
    11. Install updates for Acrobat and Reader
    12. Update your Acrobat to the latest version
    13. Download Acrobat 2020
    14. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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
    7. 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. Adobe Acrobat license has either expired or not been activated
    3. Edit PDF forms created in LiveCycle Designer
    4. Insufficient data for an image error on Adobe Acrobat
    5. Resolve errors related to the AcroCEF/RdrCEF processes of Acrobat or Acrobat Reader

Before you begin

We're rolling out a new, more intuitive product experience. If the screen shown here doesn’t match your product interface, select help for your current experience.

In the new experience, the tools appear on the left side of the screen.

About preflight results

You can view the results of a preflight inspection as a list, as comments, or individually in the Preflight dialog box. In the Results list, mismatches appear according to severity, with all errors first, followed by warnings, and then just information. An alert icon appears next to each check that did not meet the criteria specified in the preflight profile.

Preflight dialog box with problem objects
Preflight dialog box with problem objects

The icons at the top of the Preflight dialog box indicate that at least one issue of a particular severity has been found: the red error icon , the yellow warning icon , and the blue Info icon  for information only (with no errors or warnings). The green check mark  means that no problems were found.

View results in a list

The Preflight dialog box lists the issues flagged after an inspection that tests against the criteria specified in the selected profile.

  1. Run a preflight inspection.
  2. When the results appear, do any of the following:

    • If details are available, expand an area to view details about the problem object. Your Preflight preferences determine how many results, if any, are listed.

    • To view an object in a separate view, select Show in Snap.

    • To embed an audit trail, select Embed Audit Trail. You can embed an audit trail only if you used a profile to run the preflight inspection.

    • If you switched to a different view in the Preflight dialog box, select Results to return to the Results list.

    • To view an object in context on the PDF page, double-click the item. The object is highlighted with a dotted line for easier identification. This option is useful when an object, such as a font, exists in multiple places in the document. In some cases, the item is an attribute of an object (for example, a color space). In those cases, the inspection finds the objects that use the attribute.

    Note:

    You can change the type of line, its thickness, and its color on the Highlighting tab of Preflight preferences.

    Problem object on the PDF page
    Problem object on the PDF page

Use Snap View to view a problem object

Use Snap View to isolate an item when working with pages containing complex, overlapping areas. Some items, such as document information fields or page labels, cannot be displayed.

  1. Expand a results category to display the problem objects found during the inspection.
  2. Select a problem object in the list.

  3. Select Show In Snap.

  4. In the Preflight: Snap View window, select an option from the Background color menu. All problem objects are displayed on this color in Snap View.

    Note:

    You can click the arrow buttons to navigate through all of the results in this view. If the results panel is active, you can also use the arrow keys on the keyboard.

    Snap view of problem object
    Snap view of problem object

View resources and general information

The Overview section in the Results panel of the Preflight dialog box lists all types of properties and resources for the document. It lists the color spaces, fonts, patterns, halftone settings, graphic states, and images used in the document. It also lists general information about the analyzed document. This information includes the application used to create it, the date it was created, and the date it was last modified.

  1. In the Results panel of the Preflight dialog box, expand the Overview and Preflight Information sections to view details.

  2. In the Overview section, expand a property to list the resources.

View results as comments

You can embed preflight results as comments in the PDF and then view them as you would any PDF comments. Select comments   in the right pane to list each comment (or filtered comment) in a list.

Insert and view preflight comments

  1. In the Results panel of the Preflight dialog box, select Insert Results as Comments from the Options menu.

  2. If prompted, select Embed if you want to embed comments, regardless of how many exist.

  3. Hold the pointer over a comment in the PDF or select the sticky note for each comment to view its contents.

    Sample PDF report with a sticky note
    Sample PDF report with a sticky note

Remove preflight comments

In the Preflight dialog box, select the Options menu, and then select Remove Preflight Comments.

Embed an audit trail

When you embed an audit trail, a digital signature, and the audit trail information are added. The audit trail information lists the profile used and the application that created it. It also specifies whether the preflight inspection succeeded.

  1. Run a preflight inspection using a full profile.

  2. When the results appear, select Embed Audit Trail.

  3. If an informational dialog box appears, select OK.

  4. Save the file and close the Preflight dialog box.

  5. To view basic Audit Trail information, select the Standards icon  in the right navigation pane.

  6. To verify that the profile used on the document is the same as the profile on your local system, select Check Profile Fingerprint in the Standards panel
    For example, if you asked a customer to use a specific profile, you can use this check to confirm it was used.

  7. To remove the audit trail, select Remove Preflight Audit Trail and save the file.

To view additional Audit Trail information, select File > Document Properties, and select Additional Metadata in the Description tab.

Then in the dialog box, select Advanced. In the list, expand http://www.gwg.org/ns/gwg_preflight_v1. In addition to the basic preflight information, this list includes an overview of the results and the date and time the profile was executed.

Note:

You can overwrite an existing audit trail by embedding a new audit trail.

More like this

Get help faster and easier

New user?

Quick links

View all your plans Manage your plans
View quick links
Hide quick links

Legal Notices    |    Online Privacy Policy