How to Overcome PDF Dramas

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I enjoy desktop publishing. I have fathomed myself as a great graphics designer. There’s nothing I like more than finishing a project and proudly rushing it off to a client only to have it returned to me with a note that says: “I can’t quite make this out”.

Have you ever spent time trying to fix a problem without knowing its root cause? I have spent hours trying to figure out why some documents I sent to others were received in a skewed format. Yes, hours! But You don’t have to. All you have to do is save it to a PDF (Portable Document Format) and you’ve got the problem handled. Simple isn’t it? The recipient does not necessarily need the same software as you. They can view your docs with the same fonts, colors, size and everything as you created it whether they have the same software installed on their equipment or not…big relief!

But now comes a new problem: how to edit a pdf file. Just supposing that you need to make changes to the text, insert or remove pictures or graphics, or add sections or pages of text. If you’re tech savvy, this might be a simple task. Here’s how it was explained to me…

– Open a file in Acrobat.
– Click on the Edit PDF tool in the right pane.
– Click on the text or image you wish to edit.
– Add, replace, move, or resize on the page using selections from the object list.

These instructions were still a little too techie. So, if you’re like me, you might find it useful to install a PDF editor. This is what I did. I installed an Editor and the process of making changes to my PDF’s was made much simpler. My confusion about the unintentional format changing was cleared up, my blood pressure went down, and the mystery solved.

Bet you’re getting nervous, huh? Are you getting the impression that there is no secure way to ensure that your document’s formatting remains intact? What can you do to keep your images, text sizes, fonts, and original formatting? You can Password Protect your file. You can even require users to enter a password in order to open the file. In fact, the available security options associated with PDF’s offer a strong incentive for using them.

Just think of the time you’ll save not having to send and resend documents. You might even find it less frustrating to work from a user’s site and create the doc on their equipment rather than take the chance of losing or skewing data. But that’s a cowardly way out. How about just installing the necessary software and simplifying the process? You’ll be so glad you did.

If you have ever wondered what to do when files are unintentionally altered, I hope you’ll find this info helpful. You can save it as a PDF and then edit the same. But you don’t have to spend a lot of unnecessary time. Just work smarter – not harder!