Acrobat Reader Tips and Tricks

One of the most valuable tools on your computer!

Make sure you always have the latest Adobe Acrobat Reader. It is absolutely FREE, and can be downloaded at adobe.com. It doesn't hurt to check the Adobe website periodically to see if there is a newer version available. This PDF Reader program is such a necessary tool. Many businesses use pdf files as a way to distribute documents. The IRS is a great example. You need a form? Just download and print it!

Another place you can find hundreds of pdf files to peruse is CompuQuickTips. Here you can browse all of Mrs. Wizard's musings, tutorials and rantings from her newsletter (retired in December, 2006). You will find years of goodies, some still quite timely.

While it is possible in most cases to view pdf files with older versions of the FREE Acrobat reader, the latest version has a lot more options available. Don't be afraid to upgrade to the latest and greatest. In Acrobat Reader's case, it just keeps getting better and better. The latest version is 8.1 and totally compatible with Vista, and that is a good thing! It works fine with Windows XP too. Any time you have difficulty opening a .pdf file, check the version of your reader first. If you have installed any software recently, it is entirely possible an older version of Acrobat Reader slipped in as part of the installation, effectively disabling your more current version. The only cure for this is to Uninstall ALL your previous Acrobat Reader versions using the Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel. Then download and install the latest version. There is no need to keep older versions on your machine.

The Menu Bar

The words at the top of the main Acrobat Reader window are the Menu Bar. Click each word to see a list of the things you can do under each word (the menus). Click the word Tools, move your mouse pointer to Select & Zoom and choose the Hand Tool. Use the hand to "push" your pages up or down. This comes in handy if you need lots of control. When you push the page to the bottom, the next page will appear.

The Toolbar

The Toolbar is lean and mean, with just what you need to print, advance from page to page, zoom in or out on pages, adjust the way you see the pages, and a nice little search box. The search box comes in handy if you want to find something specific in a long document. Just type in what you are looking for and click the little arrow to the right of the search box to choose your options. If you choose Open Full Reader Search, a separate panel will open with all the search options at your beck and call.

The two buttons to the right of the printer button are for pay services available through your Acrobat Reader. You are certainly not obligated to use them, but they are certainly worth checking out. If you let your mouse button linger over each tool, a little popup will appear explaining what each tool button does.

Making Selections to Copy and Paste

You know the drill. If you can select (highlight) it, you can Copy it. And if you can Copy something, you can certainly Paste it into any other document on your computer. Click the word Tools in the Menu Bar. Choose the Select Tool. As you browse through the pages, highlight text just like you normally would. Click to the left of any text where you want to begin highlighting, then while holding down the left mouse button, drag until the text you want is highlighted. Once you have what you want highlighted, right click the highlighted area and choose Copy. The text will be copied to the Clipboard and ready to paste into any other document you have going.

Copying images is just as easy. With the selection tool, click once on any image in the pdf document. You will see the image highlight. All you have to do is right click it, and choose Copy. Open any word processing program, click in an empty area so you see the blinking cursor. Then right click and choose Paste. Your image will appear instantly. Amazing what you can do with a little copying and pasting!

Select the Snapshot Tool (under Tools/Select & Zoom/Snapshot Tool) in the Menu bar, then click if you want to take snapshots of entire portions of a page, images as well as text. With the Snapshot Tool selected, "draw" a box around the area you want to capture by left clicking and holding the left mouse button down while you outline the area you want. As soon as you are finished, the entire area will not only be highlighted (selected), but it will automatically be placed on the Clipboard for you. It doesn't get any better than that!

Table of Contents, Bookmarks and Links

If you look to the left of your Acrobat Reader window, you will see some buttons, more or less, depending on the content of the document. Hold your mouse pointer over each one and it will tell you what it is for. Click a button to expand it. Once expanded, a little X will appear so you can make it go away if you don't need it. The buttons are always handy though. If you see a Bookmark button, click it to view a sort of Table of Contents for your document. Clicking each item will take you to that page. Notice the finger when you hold your mouse pointer over a link. It is just like clicking a web page link, only these links take you to various areas of your document.

The page button at the top (just above Bookmarks) is similar, only it shows a thumbnail of each page in the document. Clicking each page thumbnail will take you to that page.

Pdf documents can be a window to the world if you are connected to the Internet. In the latest versions of Acrobat Reader, any spelled out links (like www.mrswizard.com) are automatically "hot," meaning if you hold your mouse pointer over one, your pointer will turn into a upward pointing finger. This means if you are connected to the Internet and click one of these links, your default browser window will open and you will be transported to that particular web page. If you are not connected, your browser window will open anyhow, but only a blank page will show.

Web Browser plugins

Sometimes, you may click a link to a pdf file in your web browser and it will open in the browser itself. This is because of a special plugin that allows you to use Acrobat Reader from within the browser. The pdf files are treated sort of like web page links, but they aren't. Your Acrobat Reader is still doing all the work. The same tool bar will be at the top of the page with a little save button, so you can save a copy of the pdf file on your computer for offline reading or sharing. If you know you want to save the file and don't really need to have it open in your browser, right click the link to the pdf file instead of just clicking it. This will give you a choice to save the pdf file (save target as or save link as) on your computer. This will cause a mini file manager to open so you can decide where you want to save your file. Once it is saved on your computer, you can just click it and your Acrobat Reader will open automatically.

Explore on your own

Do some exploring in your Acrobat Reader the next time you have a pdf file to read. Click and poke around all you want. You can't hurt a thing. You might want to make sure your speakers on and experiment with the built in automatic reader... That's right kiddies. It will actually read itself to you. Click the word View, then Read Out Loud, then Activate Read Out Loud.

Spend some time in the Preferences area too. Click the word Edit in the Menu Bar, then Preferences. This is where you can fine tune your Acrobat Reader to suit your special personality and needs. It is truly an amazing tool.

ENJOY!

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