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Subject:Re: Acrobat Pro versus Acrobat Standard? From:Jim <jameswitkin -at- gmail -dot- com> To:"Elissa K. Miller" <emiller -at- doubleknot -dot- com> Date:Tue, 23 Jun 2015 16:10:36 -0700
Elissa, thanks for sharing your process. I experimented with a few files
using the built-in PDF converter in Word (Export > Create PDF) and the
resulting PDF seems to meet my limited requirements at this time.
Richard, appreciate the input. Adobe offers a free trial of the pro version
but not the standard version.
On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 12:45 PM, Elissa K. Miller <emiller -at- doubleknot -dot- com>
wrote:
> FWIW, you can do all of these things within Word itself in Save and Send -
> Create PDF/XPS Document. (At least you can on Windows; I don't know about
> Mac.) You can choose whether to create bookmarks from headings or from
> Word-defined bookmarks. The feature automatically retains the links from
> the
> TOC to the various pages, and links to external sites.
>
> I know this because my super-budget-conscious employer has a licensed copy
> of Acrobat Standard 8.1 from many years ago that won't play nicely with
> modern Word at all, so I can't use Acrobat to create the initial PDF. The
> built-in PDF creator in Word does everything I need. The resulting PDF file
> is unnecessarily large, but I am happy that it works at all.
>
> Because I have no other choice, my steps are:
>
> 1. Set up the original Word document with headings.
> 2. Create the TOC in Word.
> 3. Save as a PDF using headings as bookmarks. The internal links in the TOC
> work, any links to outside sites work, and the heading levels are all set
> up
> nicely, and hierarchically, as PDF bookmarks.
> 4. Open the resulting file with my elderly version of Acrobat Standard 8.
> 5. Add the front matter that needs to be in the doc. I write them in Word
> and save them to PDF using CutePDF Writer because it makes nice, small PDFs
> (but won't preserve headings as bookmarks, or I'd use it for everything).
> 6. Set the document to open with the Bookmarks panel showing so readers
> will
> start off with decent navigation.
> 7. Assign numbering to sections so the front matter is numbered as i-iii
> and
> the "real" first page of content is numbered as page 1, even if it's
> actually the sixth page in the PDF document.
> 8. Set the page to be displayed when the document is opened.
> 9.Save everything and be happy that Standard 8 still does, more or less,
> what I need it to do except creating the original PDF from Word (it dies
> whether I choose Acrobat as the printer in Word, use the very old Acrobat
> plug-in, or start in Acrobat and tell it to turn the Word file into a PDF.)
>
> I read everyone's posts about using modern, industry-standard tools with
> longing. I'm pretty much living and working in 2006. Small idiosyncratic
> companies are...interesting, and I would certainly prefer to keep my skills
> current, but there are good reasons for me to stay where I am.
>
> Regards,
> Elissa
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: techwr-l-bounces+emiller=doubleknot -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+emiller=doubleknot -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
> Behalf Of Jim
> Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2015 11:34 AM
> To: techwr-l
> Subject: Acrobat Pro versus Acrobat Standard?
>
> Anyone familiar with the major differences between these two versions of
> Acrobat?
>
> Primarily, I want to create PDFs from Word documents with these features:
>
> 1) Retain hyperlinks from the Word document (both navigational hyperlinks
> to
> go to another part of the file and external links to go to web pages)
> 2) Retain the hyperlink capability for the TOC (i.e. click on section
> heading or page number in the TOC and go to that page in the PDF)
> 3) Ability to convert Word style headings (Heading 1, Heading 2, etc) to
> PDF
> bookmarks. With bookmarks, the reader gets a view of the document's TOC in
> the sidebar of the PDF viewer no matter where they are in the document.
> The user can click on the bookmarks and go to that section of the PDF.
>
> If I can do all these things with Acrobat Standard, I would rather not
> spend
> the extra money for the Pro version. Advice?
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