Adobe Acrobat Professional DC Tutorial

ADO B E A C RO B A T
Adobe Acrobat is a software program used to create forms, manuals, online book pages, maps and
drafted images, that can be uploaded to a website, and then downloaded by site visitors. Documents
created in Adobe Acrobat can be viewed as Portable Document Files (PDF) in Adobe Acrobat Reader.
After viewing the document, one can create a PDF and possibly make that a part of another file. PDF
files are designed to be viewed and edited on both Macs and PCs. PDF’s can be easily printed. This
tutorial will not only help you to create Portable Document Files but will also assist you in navigating
through your document.

TABLE O F C O NT ENTS
In this tutorial, you will learn the following:

1. Getting Started Pg. 3

2. Choosing Toolbar Pg. 3

3. Viewing Pg. 4

4. Zooming Pg. 5

5. Page Layout and Orientation Pg. 6

6. Creating PDF Files Pg. 7

7. Combining Multiple Files Pg. 8

8. Creating Bookmarks Pg. 10

9. Document Properties Pg. 11

10. Creating a Form Pg. 12

11. Embedding Fonts Pg. 16

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 1 . G E T T I NG S T A RT ED
1. The documents that you will bring into this program are called Portable Document Files (PDF).
To open a PDF file for viewing, follow these steps:

2. Launch Adobe Acrobat DC. If you are using a Mac, double-click the Acrobat icon at the bottom of the
screen inside the Dock. If you are using a PC, go to Start (Windows Icon) in the bottom left-hand
corner of the screen and find it in the list of programs provided.
3. In the main menu, go to File > Open (Figure 1).

Figure 1

2 . CHO O S I NG T O O L B A R
There are two ways to turn your toolbar options on or off.

METHOD 1:
1. On a Mac, in the menu items across the top
of the screen, click View > Tools (Figure 2)
2. Choose which tool you would like to work
with from the list.

Figure 2

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 2. CHO O S I NG TO O L B A R ( C on t in u e d )

METHOD 2:
1. This is the method on a PC or a secondary method to get to tools on a Mac. On your screen click
on Tools in the upper left of the screen (Figure 3). This will allow you to view the icons shown
below. Click on the icon pertaining to the tool you want to use. For example, if you are creating
a new PDF, click on that icon which is indicated by the blue arrow below. If you need to see more
icons, use the scroll bar indicated by the red rectangle shown below.

Figure 3

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 4 . ZO O M I NG
There are two ways to zoom in and out in your document. Choose one of the following:
1. Click the Control button on a Windows machine or the Command button on a Mac and
simultaneously click the plus sign or minus sign on your keyboard.
2. Use the HUD (Heads Up Display) shown in Figure 4. Use the + and – bubbles to increase and
decrease your view.

Figure. 4

4. VI EW I NG
1. Select the Hand tool indicated by the orange circle from the HUD shown in Figure 5.
2. Click and drag in the document to freely move the viewing area.

Figure 5

You can remove the HUD by right clicking on the gray, top menu bar (Figure 6).

Figure 6

Unclick Menu Bar indicated by the red square in Figure 7.

Figure 7

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 5. PAG E LAYOU T A ND O RI ENTA TI O N
If you need to see more than one page of the document at once, you have a variety of view options.

1. Go to View > Page Display (Figure 8)

2. You can choose from Single Page View (Figure 9), Single Page with Scrolling, (Figure 10), Two Page
View

Figure 8

Figure 9 Figure 10

Figure 11 Figure 12

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 6 . CREA T I NG P DF F I L ES
Any text document from Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Notepad or Text Edit can be converted
to a PDF.
Again, there are two ways you can create a PDF file.

METHOD 1:
1. In the main menu, go to File > Create > PDF from File. (Figure 13)
2. Select the document you wish to convert
3. Click Open.
4. Adobe Acrobat will convert the document and open it for viewing.

Figure 13

METHOD 2:
1. Click on Tools in the upper left of the screen (Figure 3) on page 4 of this tuto-
rial.
Two more options that you can explore are Dragging and
Dropping your file from the desktop (Mac users only) and
Combining Files. Dragging and Dropping your file is helpful for
quickly creating your PDF and Combining Multiple Files helps
reduce the amount of files you have by consolidating everything
into one. Refer to Figure 3 and click on the Combining Files icon
(Figure 14).
Figure 14

If you would like to email someone a picture or snapshot you have made, you can make your file into a
PDF so that it can be viewed easily via email. Launch Adobe Acrobat Pro DC and use the Create PDF
icon. Select Single or Multiple Files and click the blue Create button. Navigate to the place your picture
resides on your computer. Go to File > Save As and name your file. Click Save.

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 7 . CO MBINING M U LT I P L E F I L ES
If you need to convert several files, for example a Word document and an Excel chart into one PDF you
can use the option Combine Files into a Single PDF. To combine files, follow these steps:

1. In the main menu, go to File > Create >

Combine Files into a Single PDF (Figure
15).

Figure 15

2. Navigate to the file you wish to convert. Select the file. Click Add File (Figure 16).
3. Repeat steps 2 for all the files you need to combine.

Figure 16

4. Once you have all your files, click Combine Files.

5. Now save your new document.

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7 . C OMBINING MU L T I P L E F I L ES ( C on t in u e d )
4. After combing files, if you find that you have pages that are out of order, you can click on the page
which makes it blue and move it to the desired page order. If you hover over a page, you will see a
clockwise icon (green square), counter clockwise icon (yellow square) and trash can (red arrow). To
delete a page, click the Trash Can. To rotate a page to make it landscape click the appropriate rotation
icon (Figure 17).

Figure 17

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 8 . CRE ATI NG B O O K M A RK S
1. Click on the side bar on the left hand side of the document (Figure 18).

Figure18 Figure 19 Figure 20 Figure 21

2. Next, click on the Bookmark icon indicated by the red square in Figure 19.

3. Then click on the Add Bookmark icon indicated by the red square in Figure 20.

4. Wherever you have the page (top, middle, bottom) when you click the bookmark is where the
bookmark will go when clicked. Type the name of that bookmark and hit enter. See Figure 21.

5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for all other bookmarks.

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 9 . DO CUMENT P RO P ERTI ES
1. In the upper left menu in Acrobat Professional DC, click on File > Properties. Click the
Description tab indicated by the red arrow. You should now see a screen like Figure 22, shown below.

Figure 22
2. Fill in the correct information for the Title, Author, Subject and Keywords. Make sure to separate
the keywords with semi colons. Once you have entered all the required information, click OK.

3. Re-save this document to make sure all of the changes are incorporated into your final PDF.

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 1 0 . CREA TI NG A F O RM
Adobe Acrobat Pro can create a form from any type of PDF file. It’s just a matter of converting your
document from within Acrobat and creating fields with the tools provided.

1. When you open Acrobat Pro DC, click the Prepare Form icon (Fig.
23).
2. Select the PDF that you want to make into a form and click the
Start button. If you have boxes for text or lines for text from your
Word document, Acrobat Pro will make each of those setions a fill
in text box.

Figure 23

3. After conversion, the tray on the right side of your

screen will have changed. You will see a list of Fields.
(Figure 24) In this picture the red square indicates the
type of field. Pictured, is a Text field.

4. Right click on a field and you will be able to change the

Properties, Rename the field, Delete the field and Add
a field (Figure 25).

Figure 25

Figure 24

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 10. CRE ATING A F O RM ( C on t in u ed )
PROPERTIES:
1. The first tab you view under Properties is the General tab (Figure 25). You can name the field, make
the field Read Only or Required and change the direction of the text under Orientation.

Figure 25

NOTE: It is important that each field have its’ own unique name. Otherwise, when you fill out the
form, what you type in the field will display in every field with the same name. In the case of a Check
Box or Radio Button, it will repeat that indcator in each field of that type with the same name.

2. Next is the Appearance tab (Figure 26). You can create a border around your field, change the color,
adjust the thickness, choose solid, dashed, and more. Also, you can fill in the field with a color, select
a font, determine the font size and select a text color.

Figure 26

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 10 . CRE ATING A F O RM ( C on t in u ed )

Figure 27
3. The Position tab (Figure 27) allows you to adjust the location of the box left or right and make it
larger or smaller. You can do the same adjustments by clicking on the field and moving the field or
selecting an anchor to make larger or smaller, simliar to how you adjust a picture in Word.

NOTE: You can click on the ruler at the top and drag a line down to line up each field horizontally.
Similarly, you can click the ruler on the left and drag a verticle line into the document to line up each
field. These lines will not appear when you print the document. If the rulers are not displaying in
Acrobat Pro DC, go to View > Show/Hide > Rulers & Grids.

Figure 28
4. The Options tab (Figure 28) has three important functions. The first is Check spelling. The second
is Scroll long text which will create a scroll bar to view text that is longer than the size of the text
box. The last is Multi-line which will cause the text to create multiple lines and adjust the size of
the text to make it all visibile within that text box.

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 10 . CRE ATING A F O RM ( C on t in u ed )
5. The Actions tab allows you to implement JavaScript code that you have written for that text box.
6. The Format tab (Figure 29) can create the text box to be a Phone number, a Number and you
control the number of places as well as decimal places, a Percentage, a Date and you choose the
date format, a Time and you chose the time format, Special which includes a zip code or social
security number as formats and Custom which again would involve writing JavaScript.

Figure 29
7. The Validate tab allows you to implement JavaScript code that you have written for that text box.
8. The Calculate tab (Figure 30) allows you to add (Sum,) multiply (Product). find the Average, the
Minimum, and the Maximum of the fields that you choose. Also, you can write a Custom calculation
script using JavaScript.

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Figure 30

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 10 . CRE ATING A F O RM ( C on t in u ed )

To add a new field, right click in the fields menu

on the right and click Add New Fields (Figure 31).
Then select the type of field you want to create.

Figure 31
You can also select a field from the Prepare Form
toolbar at the top of the your screen (Figure 32).

Figure 32

11. Embedding Fonts

1. To embed fonts, you will need the Print Production tool. On a

Mac, go to Edit > Manage Tools shown in (Figure 33). On a PC,
click on the Tools menu in the top left of the screen indcated by
the blue rectangle in Figure 34.

Figure 34

Figure 33

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 11. Embedding Fonts (Continued)
2. You should now see the screen in (Figure 35). Click on the Search as indicated by the red rectangle.
Type in Preflight.

Figure 35
3. Select the Print Production icon indicated by the blue rectangle (Figure 36).

Figure 36

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 11. Embedding Fonts (Continued)

4. The Preflight tool has now been added

to the right side of your screen. Click on it
and you should see a screen like (Figure 37).
Next click the Wrench icon indicated by the
red arrow.

Figure 37

5. Click on the triagnle next to Docu-

ment, you should see a drop down menu
like shown in Figure 38. Click on Embed
fonts (even if text is invisible) indicated by
the red arrow. Then click Fix in the bot-
tom right corner.

Figure 38

6. You will be asked to name the document. Click Save. You can choose to save over the current
version.

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