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Acrobat PDFs are widely used, but often documents are created that are bulky and not easy to read. Creating a document that can be easily navigated is essential. Acrobat has the ability to create documents that can be very powerful by creating easy to navigate, interactive, and readable documents. The tools that we will look at today will give you that ability.

[edit] Acrobat Basics

Acrobat is not like other programs, most programs like Word and PhotoShop give you the ability to create a new document. Acrobat files are created outside of Acrobat and then made into a PDF through Acrobat. The goal of the Acrobat software is to create files that any computer can read without purchasing a specific program. PDFs are readable by any computer that has Acrobat Reader. Reader is a free download for anyone at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. To create PDFs you do need to have the full version of Acrobat, but this also gives you the ability to create files that are accessible to every kind of computer user. Creating PDFs is also as easy as printing to a printer. Though to add interactivity it takes a little bit of planning.

[edit] Creating A Survey

To have the opportunity to create a document that has some interactivity and shows some basic functions of Acrobat we will create a simple survey in Word. You can create PDFs from just about any software product that allows you to print. Step 1- Creating Your Original Document Open Word and think of how you would like people to respond to a general survey. Try to include the following areas; a single response answer, such as a yes or no type question, a multiple selection answer for example choose 3 of the following 6, and an open-ended question. Make sure to give yourself sufficient area around the questions for answer boxes, creating a table may help to do this. Step 2- Creating a PDF document When Acrobat is loaded onto the computer an additional printer is also loaded on your computer. This printer is called Adobe PDF. In order to turn your Word document, or any other document for that matter, into a PDF you need to print to the Adobe PDF printer. So in Word select File>Print, this will open a new window. Your default printer is normally selected, but since you want to create a PDF you will have to select the Adobe PDF printer. To change the printer you need to click on the arrow to the right on the area called Name: and select the printer that says Adobe PDF.

Once you have selected Adobe PDF as your printer you can choose any of the printing options, as you would normally do for any document. Once you are ready to print click OK. You will be asked where you want to save the document as well as the name you want to give it. After clicking Save a new screen will appear that shows the progress of the PDF creation.

Once the PDF is created Acrobat will open your new document. Your document should look just like the one that you created in Word. Now we are ready to add some interactive features within the document. Step 3- Adding Buttons, Text Boxes, and Other Interactive Pieces Now that you have your survey there are some different ways to add interactive elements. The first item we will add is a simple text box were you could have people answer an open-ended question. The textbox tool allows you to create a space for people to enter their own text, but also gives you the ability to control how they are entering the information. To create a textbox you want to select this tool by clicking on the icon. Your cursor should now look like a small plus sign without a middle section. This tool allows you to create a textbox by clicking and dragging within the document. Once you have created a text box a new menu will come up. This menu allows you to set specific attributes according to how you want the form filled out. There are 7 tabs within the attributes menu. Of the 7 there are 4 that are fairly important they are; general, appearance, options, and format. The appearance menu by default shows first. The appearance tab allows you to change the background color of the textbox and also give the textbox a border. Depending on who your audience is you may want to change the appearance. The tool also gives you the ability to define the text attributes that will appear in the document.

The general tab is one of the first tabs you should look at, after you have changed the appearance. The general tab is important especially if you are going to have any of this information returned. This tab allows you to give the field a name. If the information is sent back to you, you want to know what the information is. By giving your text box a name this becomes easier. Also if you want people to be able to hover their mouse over the textbox and receive instructions it would be beneficial to enter a tool tip. You can also make the field required so that people have to send you the information.

The Options tab also gives you some control of how things are entered into the form. You can; have the text aligned to a certain area, allow people to enter multiple lines of text, scroll long text, meaning that if someone’s name is more then the textbox allows they can enter it without eliminating letters, limit the number of letters, and even enable spell check.

The Format tab is a nice feature when you want specific styles of information, such as a date in month-day-year format.

Step 3-Creating Radio Buttons and Check Boxes

Radio buttons can be a nice feature that allows people to quickly choose a single answer. To insert a Radio button you need to click on the radio button tool . When you create a Radio button you are given another tabbed menu, this time it opens with the General tab selected. The choices in the General tab are the same for the Radio button as for the text, the one difference is that by naming the Radio button the same as another and changing the export value you can make the buttons mutually exclusive, for example having radio buttons for a yes or no answer. The Appearance tab allows you to change the way the button looks in regards to color. The Options tab is important for creating buttons that work in a certain way. One choice in the options tab is the style of the button, whether it is a circle, diamond or other shape. The Export value makes buttons act in a certain way. If you want a yes, no, or maybe question to be answered you would create three buttons with the same name and give them the three export values you have chosen, yes, no, or maybe.

The last tab that you may want to use is the Actions tab. This tab allows you to set a specific action for the button depending on whether the person has let go of their mouse, Mouse Up. Pressed the their mouse button, Mouse Down. Had their cursor in the area of the Radio button, Mouse Enter. Moving their cursor out of the Radio button area, Mouse Exit. The actions named on Focus and on blur seem to be for media files. The actions that you can set vary from opening a page in the Acrobat document you are creating to playing a sound. Using these different functions depend on what you are trying to accomplish.

The main difference between a Radio button and a Check Box is that a check box would be used for areas where you would want multiple selections made, perhaps a checklist of items included. The tabbed menus are all the same except for the Options tab, which allows for values and appearance to be set.

Step 4- Creating List Boxes or Combo Boxes The reason for grouping these two tools together is because of their similarity in function. The Combo box is a basic drop down menu which would allow you to have people select a specific value, whether it was text or numerical. The nice feature about the Combo box is the ability to have it calculate and validate data for you. The Tabs within the menu for a Combo box are similar to the other two menus we have talked about. The Menus that are different are Options, Calculate, and Validate.

The Options tab allows you to have a list of items and give them a specific Export Value. If you wanted to give the Item of Librarian the export value of 4 latter on you would know that a 4 in your database or spreadsheet stood for Librarian.

The Calculate tab allows you to have the values of selected items calculated by their sum, product, average, minimum, or maximum. You can also enter Java scripts to execute on the Combo box. The Validate tab is to validate the information being entered. If you wanted to make sure that numbers between 1-50 were entered into the combo box you could create a validation script, or specify the field value in range.

The List box differs from the combo box because you can make multiple selections with the list box. The tabbed menus are the same except for the Options tab. The area of difference is underneath the Item List: box. The two check marks allow you to sort the items and have the user select Multiple selections. This is useful for places where your audience may be picking from a list that they would choose more then one item.

[edit] Editing an Acrobat File

Most of the time you won’t edit within Acrobat, but there may be a time when a small change could be made and it would take less time editing in Acrobat then recreating the Acrobat file.

Step 5- Changing Text Sometimes you can misspell a word and even after proofreading not catch it. If there were only one or two of these in a document it would be much quicker to edit the text in Acrobat instead of recreating the form. For this we would want to use the Touch Up Text tool . This tool allows you to select areas of text and edit them without recreating the Acrobat file. To use this tool simply click on the text that you want to edit and a blue square will appear. Now you can begin editing the text. One thing to note is you must have the correct fonts on your computer to edit the text.

What about trying to remove or edit something that isn’t text? For this you want to use the Touch Up Object tool . This tool allows you to take graphics or grids and edit them. The only drawback to this tool is that you need a program that can edit graphics.

Step 6- Readability Most audiences will not read a document that is confusing or difficult to read. Fortunately Acrobat gives you a variety of tools to create documents that are easy to read and navigate.

Bookmarks-One tool that can be used for navigation is a bookmark. This can be created in the native document if it allows it, or can be inserted later on in Acrobat. To insert a bookmark the easiest way is to find the section of the document that you want to bookmark and in the bookmark pane select new bookmark. This will create a bookmark that matches the view you are seeing on your screen.

Article Tool- When you have a document that is in columns to keep people from having to scroll up and down through the document you can use the article tool . This tool will allow you to create a simple box around the text guiding the user through the document, in the order it is suppose to be read.

Link Tool- Acrobat will preserve linked material in a native document, but if you forget to add a link you can use the link tool. One drawback of the tool is that the link isn’t as appealing to the eye as you may want, since the options are limited.