Adobe Acrobat FAQ
1. Why Your Adobe Acrobat Doc Isn’t a Picture
Ever try to insert a PDF file and discover that your program can see every other picture but that? It’s not showing PDFs at all…what’s up with that? What’s up with that is that a PDF isn’t really a picture. It’s a set of printer instructions. It looks like the same thing to us, but our computers have different senses.
So how to deal with it? The same way you change the format on any picture
Open Word
Insert>Picture from File
Right click and choose “Save as Picture.” Choose the format that works for you (.jpg is a safe bet) and click “Save.”
Another way? Copy the whole thing with Snag-it and save it as a .tiff.
2. Why won’t Acrobat Pro Print Landscape?
A lot of you have been asking this question. And the answer iiiisssss: I don’t know. Sorry–it hasn’t happened to me. It appears to be a common issue on the newest Windows version, however. Try this:
From the “View” menu choose “Rotate View.” You may find this choice on your tool bar. Now print.
If that doesn’t work, insert the pdf into Word as a picture and print landscape.
Another option: Click the snapshot tool and drag it around everything you have to print and paste it into Word.
If all else fails (or even before), discover The Wonder of Snag-it.
3. Why aren’t my signatures printing?
Best guess: your system doesn’t have fonts that were used by the creator of the signature. You can find a workaround here.
4. The right edges are cut off when I print a PDF that I created from a web page
There’s a post about that on the main page, but I won’t make you dig through all those posts. It goes like this:
Your executive asks you to print off that article on Golfing Underwater he saw on www.throwawaybigbucks.com. Piece of cake, right? You print from Explorer…and the right edge is cut off. Phooey.
You set your page to landscape. The right side is STILL cut off.
You have Acrobat, so you try printing to PDF. No joy.
After you kick the printer a couple of times, you try to cut and paste the article into a Word doc. Either it’s protected and won’t let you, or you get all of the golf clubs and bubbles and Montblac ads on the page mixed into the article. You pick out the article sentence by sentence and paste it into a new doc, and print that.
Only 45 minutes later, and you’ve printed an article! You’re not embarrassed…much. Don’t let this happen to you!
Tell your IT department that it’s crucial for you to have Adobe Acrobat PRO, and that it needs to be set up so that you have its icon in Explorer. For reasons I don’t even want to contemplate, if you choose “convert web page to pdf” from this icon, it will create a perfect document, but if you choose File>Print and choose Adobe Acrobat as the printer it will make a PDF with a cut-off right edge. Obtain the icon, even if you have to bite ankles to do it.
UPDATE: MS Explorer 2007 claims to have solved this problem, so that’s another solution.
OK, that’s one way to do it, but maybe your company isn’t springing for Pro, or Pro is what’s giving you trouble. I have are four workarounds:
a) Use the snapshot tool. Click on the little camera in the toolbar and drag around everything you want to print. When you let go, it will all be on your clipboard. Paste it into Word, set your margins and print. This will only work if you have Pro, however – Reader doesn’t have any toys.
b) Again I say, discover The Wonder of Snag-it. Snag-it is a snapshot tool all its own, with goodies. Paste your snagged image into Word and print. The best part is that it will scroll the whole page all on its own if you want it to. Yes, it involves convincing your company to buy software, but it’s cheaper than Pro, so you have a better shot.
c) Shift+”Print Screen,” paste into Word, set margins, and print.
d) You can try inserting your PDF into Word as a picture and resizing it. It probably won’t work out, but it’s worth a try.
5) I printed 15 copies of a 30 page document and it didn’t collate!!
Yep. Acrobat fails to collate with many printers, including HP and Lanier, no matter what choices you make in preferences. The workaround: once you’ve set your preferences and printed one copy, just keep hitting the print button in the tool bar until you reach the right number of copies. I know it seem simplistic and annoying, but it isn’t nearly as time-consuming as collating 450 pages by hand. Check whether or not your version works with your printer by printing a 2 copies of a very small document.
6) Can I make a PDF without a copy of Acrobat?
Yes! If you’re working in Microsoft Office for Windows, choose “Print.” In the Print window you’ll see a choice of printers. One of them is Microsoft Office Document Image Writer. Choose that, and you will have a PDF.
I any Macintosh program, choose “Print.” In the Print window, you’ll see PDF on the bottom left. Pull the drop-down arrow to “Save as a PDF” (or anything else you might want to do with a PDF).
Ta da!
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