Lionism
District
Members
Activities
Calendar
Newsletter
Resources
Links
Site Map
Contacts
Home
|
| |
How To Prepare Adobe Acrobat PDF Files
UPDATED JULY 1, 2007
Before You Create That PDF
Use a Program that Supports PDF. Up-to-date versions of most commonly used programs, such as Word, Pagemaker, InDesign and Excel, will allow you to create PDFs directly. Life will be a lot easier if you use such a program because you won't need to buy Acrobat Distiller or worry about lots to technical settings.
Format Your Document with PDF in Mind.
- Design for others. Many people prefer to read PDF files on their computer screen rather than going to the time and expense of printing a hard copy. Therefore, you should design your document to be easy to read on a variety of computer screens and also be good looking when it is printed. Many folks who print PDFs do so in gray scale so that they can conserve their more expensive color printing cartridges. So it would be nice if you designed the colored portions of your document so they also looked good in grays.
- Use a readable san serif font. Verdana is the easiest-to-read screen font. If you don't have it, then use Ariel or Helvetica. Make the font size large enough so that older folks don't have to use their reading glasses and crowd their monitors. Those monitors really hate it when you get in their personal space.
- Don't use background images unless they are well integrated with the foreground text.
- Compile text as text. If at all possible, avoid presenting text, including tables and captions, as any kind of picuture. Do not use text boxes that are treated as images and do not introduce text in gif, jpg, tif or other image files. Text compiled as pictures looks ragged and pixelates in the PDF format. Small print is sometimes unreadable even for normal eyes. Even more important, text compiled as pictures cannot be searched by internet search engines. All they see is the title of the image file. If text contains anything that you expect people to find using search commands, it must be entered as text from the beginning.
Avoid Layered Images. Layered and transparent images create complications in many programs. Page layout programs often reduce these images to 72 dpi when they are imported, so they do not look good when expanded beyond 100% by the Adobe Acrobat Reader. In addition, any PDF pages that are compiled with transparent layers will not support some other important features, such as live email and internet links. Therefore, it is best to convert image files, such as gif and jpg files, to file formats designed for printed documents, such as eps or tif files. Programs, such as Photoshop, make conversion easy and allow you to collapse internal layers that you can't see.
What You May Need
Adobe Acrobat Professional. Since almost all recent and current versions of commonly used programs, such as word and In Design, have Acrobat built into them, it is usually not necessary to have the Acrobat Distiller, the program that makes PDF files. However, the professional version of Acrobat is still a good investment if you routinely make and manipulate PDF files. It allows you to create PDF files from scratch, edit text and graphics in existing PDF files, add live web and eMail links to PDF files, copy graphics from PDF files, add notes and supplementary material to PDF files, lock files for security purposes, and streamline PDF files for the web.
Post Script Printer Driver. Many programs require you to have (and select) a Post Script printer driver installed in your Extension folder (MAC) or your Printer Control Pannel (DOS). If this is a problem, your program will let you know when you try to "Export" or "Save As" a PDF file. If you don't have, or don't know how to install, a PS driver, fear not, for most printer interfaces allow for a second way to create a PDF file. Simply proceed as though you were going to print your document. When your printer dialog window is displayed, you should see an option that allows you to create a PDF. Select this option and follow subsequent instructions.
Open and Inspect The PDF File. Always open and inspect the PDF file at the time you create it. The programming required to create a PDF is quite complex and occasionally something goes amiss. If you did not get the results you expected, close your file and the program you used to create the PDF, reopen the file and try making the PDF over again from scratch. This often solves the problem.
How to Control File Size
Why File Size ls Important. File size is important because large files take much longer to download and display. A PDF file of 800k can take as long as two minutes to display using a dial-up internet connection. In addition, large numbers of big files may increase the monthly bill for operating your web site.
Avoid Unnecessary Graphics. Graphics are the most likely cause of file sizes that are unacceptably large. Lines, boxes, text boxes, colored table cells, and the like, are all compiled as graphics. Text placed as a picture is also a graphic. Many graphical elements add no information to your publication. How badly are they needed for the look you want?
|
|
|
|
|
