Adobe Acrobat Reader™ 4.0

Hints and Tips

The following information is distilled from the Adobe Acrobat 4.0 on-line help manual.  Version 5.0 may differ slightly.  It is intended to provide you with a basic introduction to using files downloaded in Adobe Acrobat format.  For more detailed information see the complete online guide by clicking Help on the toolbar in Acrobat Reader. 

Hint: Print out this page and keep it as a reference when using Adobe Acrobat Reader

Contents

1. Toolbar
2. Printing PDF documents
3. Magnifying the page view
4. Working with large page sizes
5. Choosing a page layout for scrolling ease
6. Setting a default view
7. Paging through a document
8. Browsing with bookmarks
9. Browsing with thumbnails
10. Retracing your steps
11. Finding words
12. Copying and pasting text and graphics to another application
13. Page Numbering

Toolbar

	Open a .pdf document			Go to first page
	Show the navigation pane			Go to previous page
	Print the current document			Go to next page
	Hand Tool to move page's view			Go to last page
	Zoom in on the page			Go back to the previous view
	100% zoom (actual size)			Go forward to the previous view
	Fit page into the window			Text selection tool to copy*
	Fit page width inside window			Find a word*

*Tip: The 'Text Selection' and 'Find a Word' tools are not available in scanned .pdf files unless they were also processed with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software after being scanned.

Printing PDF documents

First, select the print options you want by using the File >Print Setup command. When you are ready to print, choose File > Print.

Note, you can print specific pages of a document but beware that the document page numbers may differ from the Acrobat Reader page numbers.  When specifying a range of page numbers to print always use the Acrobat Reader page numbering.

Hint: If printed documents come out all black then select "Print as Image" in the printer dialog box.

Tip: Always select the "Shrink oversize pages to fit" to avoid larger pages from being clipped off due to having different margin settings or paper sizes.

Magnifying the page view

You can use the zoom tool,  the magnification box in the status bar, or the Actual Size, Fit Page, and Fit Width  toolbar buttons to change the screen magnification.

The maximum magnification level is 800%. The minimum magnification level is 12%.

If you zoom in on a large document, use the hand tool  to move the page around on-screen or in a thumbnail.

Acrobat viewers also offer magnification level choices that are not related to a specific percentage, but to the look of the page on screen:

• Fit Page  scales the page to fit within the main window.
• Fit Width  scales the page to fit the width of the main window.
• Fit Visible fills the window with the page’s imaged area only (text and graphics).

When you select any of the Fit options, the magnification level resulting from the selection is displayed in the status bar.

The Fit options, Fit Page, Fit Width, and Fit Visible are in a sticky state, which means they don’t change as you page through a document unless you change the zoom level.

To increase magnification choose one of the following:

• Select the zoom tool  on the document page to double the current magnification.
• Select the zoom tool  and drag to draw a rectangle, called a marquee, around the area you want to magnify.
• Click the magnification box in the status bar  and choose a magnification level. If you choose Zoom To, type in the magnification level and click OK.

To decrease magnification choose one of the following:

• Select the zoom tool  while holding down the Ctrl (Windows and UNIX) or Option (Macintosh) and click at the center of the area you want to reduce.
• Select the zoom tool  while holding down the Ctrl Key and drag to draw a rectangle, called a marquee, around the area you want to reduce.
• Click the magnification box in the status bar  and choose a magnification level. If you choose Zoom To, type in the magnification level and click OK.

Note: If viewing a PDF document in a Web browser window, use the zoom out tool  to decrease magnification.

Working with large page sizes

If you need to magnify a page to a size larger than the viewer window can display to read it, you can use the hand tool  to drag the page around so that you can view all the areas on it. Moving a PDF document around with the hand tool is like moving a piece of paper around on a desk with your hand.

Choosing a page layout for scrolling ease

Acrobat viewers have three page layout options:

Single Page, Continuous, and Continuous-Facing Pages. Continuous and Continuous-Facing Pages facilitate page scrolling so that you can see the bottom of one page and the top of another.

Single page layout displays one page in the document window at a time.

Continuous layout arranges the pages in a continuous vertical column.

Continuous-Facing Pages layout arranges the pages to appear side by side. This configuration accommodates two-page spread display and multiple-page viewing in the viewer window. If the total page count of a document is greater than two pages, the first page is displayed on the right to ensure proper display of two-page spreads. To see two-page spreads most efficiently in this page layout, choose View > Fit Width.

To set a page layout choose one of the following:

• Click the page size box in the status bar, and choose one of the page layouts from the menu.
• Choose Single Page, Continuous, or Continuous-Facing Pages from the View menu.

Setting a default view

You can set a default viewing magnification, a default page layout, and other viewing defaults in the General Preferences dialog box. These settings apply to any document that has been set to open in the default view.

To set a default view:

1 Choose File > Preferences > General to open the General Preferences dialog box.

2 Choose settings for the following options:

• Default Page Layout specifies a page layout for your Acrobat viewer to use when PDF documents are first opened.
• Default Magnification specifies a magnification level for your Acrobat viewer to use when PDF documents are first opened.
• Max "Fit Visible" Magnification sets the maximum magnification for the Fit Visible view and for viewing articles.
• Substitution Fonts specifies which Multiple Master fonts your Acrobat viewer uses to substitute for Type 1 and TrueType fonts that are not available on your computer. If PDF documents fail to print because of insufficient printer memory, choose Sans from the Substitution Fonts menu. Changing the Substitution Fonts setting has no effect until you restart Windows or your Macintosh.
• Page Units (inches, millimeters, or points) specifies which unit of measurement is used to display the page size in the status bar and in the Crop dialog box with the Page Units option.
• Display Large Images specifies displaying images larger than 128K. A gray box appears in place of a large image if you do not choose this option. Not displaying large images can speed paging through a document.
• Greek Text: Below [___] pixels specifies displaying text below the designated point size as gray lines to speed display time. The original default is 6.
• Smooth Text and Monochrome images specifies smoothing the edges of text and monochrome images to minimize the contrast between the background and the text or image. This effect usually improves the quality of the display on-screen.

Paging through a document

The Acrobat Exchange program provides a number of ways to page through a document.

To go to the next page choose one of the following:

• Click the Next Page button  in the toolbar.
• Press the Right or Down Arrow on your keyboard.
• Choose View > Next Page.

To return to the previous page choose one of the following:

• Click the Previous Page button  in the toolbar.
• Press the Left or Up Arrow.
• Choose View > Previous Page.

To go to the first page choose one of the following:

• Click the First Page button  in the toolbar.
• Press the Home key.
• Choose View > First Page.

To go to the last page choose one of the following:

• Click the Last Page button  in the toolbar.
• Press the End key.
• Choose View > Last Page.

To jump to a specific numbered page choose one of the following:

• Click the page number box  in the status bar at the bottom of the main window, type the page number, and click OK.
• Choose View > Go To Page, type the page number, and click OK.
• Drag the vertical scroll bar up and down until the rectangle to the left of the scroll bar displays the number of the page to which you want to jump.

To move one screen at a time:

• Press the PageDown key, Enter, or Return to move forward.
• Press the PageUp key, Shift+Enter, or Shift+Return to go back.

Browsing with bookmarks

A bookmark is an index of all the sections of a document, similar to a table of contents.  

To view bookmarks click on the bookmarks tab or select Window > Show Bookmarks to show them in the navigation pane.  If no bookmarks appear it means the document was saved without that option.

To jump to a particular section just double-click on that bookmark.

Browsing with thumbnails

A thumbnail is a miniature view of each page in the document that you can display in the overview area.

You can use thumbnails to jump quickly to a page or to adjust the view of the current page.

If thumbnails don't appear it means the document was not saved with that option.

To jump to a page by using its thumbnail:

Choose Window > Show Thumbnails to display the thumbnail images in the navigation pane. Click a thumbnail to move to the page it represents. The point you click determines the center of the page display.

To adjust the view of the current page choose one of the following:

• Place the pointer over the lower right corner of the page-view box (the light-gray box) in the thumbnail of the current page. When the pointer changes to a double arrow, drag the corner of the box to reduce or expand the view of the page.
• Use the hand tool to move around the current page by dragging the page-view box on the thumbnail.
• Position the pointer anywhere outside the current page-view box, and drag to draw a new box.

Retracing your steps

The Go Back button  traces your viewing path through a document or series of documents. You can go back up to 64 views. Go Back will reopen closed documents if necessary.

To retrace your viewing path:

• Click the Go Back button  or choose View > Go Back to return to the previous page, document, or magnification level.
• Click the Go Forward button  or choose View > Go Forward to reverse direction and return, one view at a time, to the view where you first used Go Back.

Finding words

Use the Find command to find part of a word, a complete word, or multiple words in the active document.

To find a word:

1. Click the find tool, or choose Tools > Find.

2. Choose any combination of the following options, or none of them:

• Match Whole Word Only specifies ignoring words that are contained within the text you enter. For example, the word stick would not be highlighted if you chose the word sticky to find.
• Match Case specifies finding only those words that contain exactly the same capitalization as you enter in the Find dialog box.
• Find Backwards specifies starting from the current page and searching backwards through the file. Find Backwards is helpful if you want to find a term you passed earlier in the document.

3. In the Find What text box, enter the text to be found and click Find. When the program finds the text, the Find dialog box closes and the page containing the text is displayed with the text highlighted.

4. To find the next occurrence of the word, press Ctrl (Windows and UNIX) or Command (Macintosh) +G, or reopen the Find dialog box and click Find Again. With Windows, pressing F3 also finds the next occurrence of the word. You will be prompted to loop around to the beginning of the document if you start the process on any page other than the first page.

Copying and pasting text to another application

You can select text  in a PDF document, copy it to the Clipboard, then paste it into a document in another application, such as a word processor. 

To select text and copy it to the Clipboard:

1. Do one of the following:

• Click the text selection tool or choose Tools > Select Text and drag to select the text you want to copy.
• To select text in one column of a multicolumn story, hold down the Ctrl (Windows and UNIX) or Option key (Macintosh) while dragging to select the text.
• To select all text on the pages shown in your viewer window—even if only a portion of a page is showing—choose Edit > Select All.
• When you release the mouse button, the selected text is highlighted. To deselect the text and start over, click anywhere outside the selected text.

2. Choose Edit > Copy to copy the selected text to the Clipboard. To view the text, choose Window > Show Clipboard.

Page Numbering

Q. The page numbers in a document's table of contents don't match the page numbers in Adobe Acrobat Reader.

A. Most documents don't include the cover or table of contents pages in their page counts.  Normally page one is the first page after the table of contents.   Acrobat Reader counts from the first page of the document.  Hint: scroll to the last page before page one in the document and check the page number shown in Acrobat Reader.   Add that number to the page number in the table of contents to know the acrobat reader page.  i.e. if a table of contents ends on Acrobat's page 3 then page 31 of a document would be on Acrobat's page 34.