Make it right with the editing tools in Acrobat

Excerpted from “Adobe Acrobat 7 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide” by Jennifer Alspach

Commenting on an Adobe® PDF file can go beyond applying a note or altering text. With the Advanced Commenting and Drawing Markups tools in Adobe Acrobat® 7, you can add shapes, lines, callouts, and dimension lines. You can also use the tools to edit text.

Comment on text using the drawing tools

Use the drawing tools as you would use a pencil or pen to mark up a PDF page and to show the areas you want to edit. The drawing tools let you draw specific shapes around sections of text, point to areas in a PDF, and explain comments in a PDF.

• The Callout tool creates a note with an arrow to point to a specific area in your document (Figure 1).

  

  Figure 1: The Callout tool makes a note with a pointing arrow.

• The Cloud tool works just like the polygon tool in how it draws a shape. When the shape is completed, it looks like a cloud (Figure 2).

  

  Figure 1: The Cloud tool lets you draw cloud-like shapes around areas of your PDF.

• The drawing tools in the Drawing Markups toolbar let you use graphic objects as comments. You can create arrows, rectangles, ovals, lines, polygons, and polygon lines to illustrate your point. Use the Pencil tool to draw a free-form shape and the Pencil Eraser tool to erase any parts of your Pencil-drawn line.

• The Dimensioning tool draws dimension lines at points you select.

• Text Box comments is not in the Drawing Markups toolbar, but is so closely related to the functions in that toolbar that it warrants including in this list. Text Box comments is in the Advanced Commenting toolbar and it allows you to add text in a box to the document, like putting a sticky note right on the document. It doesn't collapse like a note does, and you can jazz up the box the note is in. You can access the properties of the text box to change the font, box color, and other options.

To mark up a page with the drawing tools:

1. Select the tool you want to use from the Drawing Markups toolbar.

2. Click or drag in the document page to draw with the tool you've selected on the PDF document.

   • You can change the size of the shape you created by selecting the shape with the Hand tool. Adjustment handles appear on the shape, and you can drag them out (to make them larger) or in (to make them smaller). As you drag the box corner, hold the Shift key to preserve the proportions of the shape.

   • Hold down the Shift key to constrain your lines to 45-degree angles, your ellipses to circles, and your rectangles to squares. The Shift key has no effect on the Pencil tool.

Use the pencil tool

To use the Pencil tool:

1. Select the Pencil tool from the Drawing Markups toolbar (Figure 3).

   

   Figure 3: The Pencil tool is the Arrow Tool menu.

2. Draw a free-form shape with the Pencil tool.

3. Click with the Hand tool to deselect the shape.

Use the Pencil Eraser tool:

To use the Pencil Eraser tool:

1. Select the Pencil Eraser tool from the Drawing Markups toolbar.

2. Click the shape to erase small sections of the path. You can also just drag the tool across any part of the pencil line you want to delete (Figure 4).

   

   Figure 4: The Pencil Eraser tool removes the line created by the Pencil tool.

Change the line weight and color:

To change the line weight and color:

1. With the Hand tool, right-click/Control-click the edge of the line you have drawn.

2. Choose Properties from the contextual menu. The Properties dialog box for the selected shape appears (Figure 5).

   

   Figure 5: In the Properties dialog box, you can change the appearance of the line.

   Click on the Appearance tab. In the Thickness field, type a new value or click the up and down arrows to change the thickness. You'll see the changes immediately on the selected line.

3. Make selections for color and opacity, if desired. The changes take effect immediately.

4. Click Close in the Properties dialog box.

Edit text

Another way to edit a document is actually change the text, not just comment on it. You can change any text in Acrobat with Touchup Text tool in the Advanced Editing toolbar. Unlike the Select Text tool, Touchup Text enables you to change the text. One important caveat is that you must have the same font installed on your computer as the text that you wish to change. Acrobat will let you know if this condition is not met.

To use the Touchup Text tool:

1. Select the Touchup Text tool in the Advanced Editing toolbar (Figure 6).

   

   Figure 6: You can edit text with TouchUp Text tool.

2. Click any line of text in the PDF document. A box appears around the line of text.

3. Select text within the box by dragging around it.

4. Replace the selected text by typing or delete it by pressing the Backspace/Delete key.

To edit text attributes:

1. Select the Touchup Text tool in the Advanced Editing toolbar.

2. Click anywhere within the line of text you want to change. A box appears around the line.

3. Right-click/Control-click the text, then choose Properties from the contextual menu to access the TouchUp Properties dialog box. The dialog box (Figure 7) lists the following options:

   

   Figure 7: Choose options in the Properties dialog box to change the text’s font, size, and more.

   • Font: Lists all the fonts installed on your system. (If you want to see the fonts in the document, choose Document Properties and click the Fonts tab.)

   • Font size: Lets you choose text size from 6-point to 72-point text.

   • Character Spacing: Lets you adjust the spacing between two or more characters.

   • Word Spacing: Lets you adjust the spacing between two or more words.

   • Horizontal Scaling: Sets the ratio between the width and the height of the text. Change the Horizontal scale to jazz up the look of a heading by making it wider to fit across the page.

   • Embed: Lets you specify whether to embed the font in the PDF.

   • Subset: Lets you create super- or subscript text.

   • Fill Color and Stroke: Let you change the color of the selected text.

   • Stroke Width: Lets you enter a stroke weight in points for the selected text. In other words, you choose the weight of the line around each individual letter.

   • Baseline Offset: Sets the text’s vertical offset from the baseline (also known as superscript or subscript style).

Excerpted from “Adobe Acrobat 7 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide” by Jennifer Alspach © 2005. Published by Pearson Education, Inc. and Adobe Press. To buy this book, visit www.peachpit.com.

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