Acrobat User Community Forums - Help
Introduction
Registration
If you are already a registered member of the Acrobat User Community, you can access the forums — and post questions or replies — using your user name and password. If you are not a member, just complete our member registration form for free, full access to the forums. (You can browse and read forum messages without registering, but you will not be able to post questions or replies.).
Login
You can access the forums from a link on the main navigation bar on AcrobatUsers.com (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Access the forums from the main site navigation bar.
If you log in to AcrobatUsers.com and then go to the forums — both utilize the same Username and Password -- you'll see near the top of the main page "Logged in as <username>” (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Only registered members — after logging in — can post in the forums.
If you are not already logged in to AcrobatUsers.com when you go to the forums, you'll instead see a message "You are not logged in.” You may browse without logging in, but to post, you must first log in to your AUC member account (Figure 3). If you don't have one, there's also a link to sign up.
Figure 3: The same site login details work for the forums and other areas within AcrobatUsers.com.
Interface basics
If you are not logged in, on the main forums page you'll see a default set of features and links (Figure 4):
Figure 4: Default forum navigation links.
Forum Index — main page listing all topical discussion forums
Search Forums — search by various criteria
Recent posts — listing of member posts within past 24 hours
Unanswered posts — listing of all posts with no replies
Forum Guidelines — rules of the road
Help — latest version of this document
If you are logged in, on the main forums page you'll see an additional feature:
Settings
In Settings, you can further customize your forum profile by adding or modifying optional information to some or all categories in the Settings menu (Figure 5):
Figure 5: You can customize various forum features according to your personal preferences.
Essentials — Change password or registered e-mail address, set timezone
Personal — edit your real name and enter your location
Messaging — add your IM details
Personality — compose a text-based personal signature
Display — set options for viewing forum posts
Privacy — Provides several privacy settings options
Figure 6: You can make your e-mail address visible to other forum members, accept only form-based e-mail or disable direct contact from within the forum.
You can also choose to include the full text of any forum messages to which you subscribe for e-mail notification. The default setting is to receive a message that a particular forum message has been updated; you must visit the forum to read the new message.
Shortcut links
There are several links at the top (Figure 7) and bottom (Figure 8) of the main forums page that provide self-explanatory shortcuts to specific functionality:
Figure 7: Links shown at top right.
Figure 8: Links shown at bottom left.
Posting
On the main forums page (Forum Index), you’ll see a complete listing of the various discussion forums (Figure 9), along with statistics about the number of topics and posts, an indication of the most recent post and an RSS news feed link for each.
Figure 9: Discussions are arranged by a variety of specific subtopics and you can subscribe to an RSS news feed for each topical forum.
Forums
The forums include:
The forums include:
- Announcements & Events (read-only)
- General Acrobat Topics
- 3D
- Accessibility
- Collaboration and Commenting
- Deployment & Installation
- Forms: Acrobat
- Forms: LiveCycle Designer
- JavaScript
- PDF Creation
- PDF Portfolios
- Printing and Prepress
- Rich Media/Flash
- Security
New topic
Click a specific forum, such as Forms, to see all of the topics and messages within that category (Figure 10). You'll see a listing of messages by subject line, along with the number of the respective replies and views and the date of the most recent post for each. Many of the forums include an FAQ specific to that particular topic, so it’s always good to check there for some of the more common questions and answers.
Figure 10: Each discussion forum provides information about the message topics within its category and includes a link to start a new topic.
If you are logged in, at the top right you'll also see a link to "Post new topic" within that forum. You can jump to another forum either by using the drop-down box at the lower left, or by clicking the Forum Index at the top left.
If you click "Post new topic," a new window opens (Figure 11), where you can enter a descriptive subject [see Forum guidelines] and the text of your message. If you added a signature in Settings > Personality, it will be added automatically when you submit your message. You may also preview your message before posting it.
Figure 11: The ‘Post new topic’ link opens a window where you enter a meaningful Subject and your question in that forum.
TYou can toggle the “Tell us about your software” fields on or off; adding specific product information related to your question may help other members respond more promptly – eliminating the need to ask for such details. In the “Add Categories” field, you can also indicate the relevant topic or topics related to your posted question.
There is also an optional checkbox at the bottom of the form where you can "Subscribe to this topic." If this box is checked — it is checked by default — notifications of all replies to this message will be e-mailed to your registered e-mail address. You can choose to receive the full text of replies rather than just notification — see Privacy in the Settings section in this document. (Note that people who receive forum messages through e-mail subscription will not be able to post replies back to the forum via e-mail.)
Responding
If you want to respond to an existing post, click its subject line to view all messages in the thread. At the end of the thread is a short “Quick post” form (Figure 12) for adding a reply.
Figure 12: At the end of every topical thread is a ‘Quick post’ form for easily adding your reply at the end of previously posted replies.
At the end of each message in a thread, you'll see a "Post reply" link (Figure 13). Click it to open a new window for replying to a specific message. Below the text-entry area, you'll see a Topic review section that lists all messages in that thread, with the most recent at the top.
Figure 13: To post a reply to a particular message within a topical thread, click the ‘Post reply’ link to add your reply immediately following that message.
Quote
If you want to include some text from the message to which you are responding, there's a Quote link (Figure 14) at the bottom right of each member's post. If you click the Quote link, the previous message is added to the window where you will be adding a reply. If you choose to quote, please do so sparingly — repeat only enough of a previous message to give your response some context. Do not quote long, full-text messages and then add only a short reply.
Figure 14: The ‘Quote’ link allows you to include some of the previous message with your response.
Report
At the bottom of each message, there's a Report link (Figure 14). If you think a particular forum post needs to be reviewed by a forum administrator, click Report and add a brief message explaining why you're reporting that post. We regularly review all reports and take any required actions.
Subscribe
Click the "Subscribe to this topic" link (Figure 14) at the bottom of a message to receive notification of all subsequent replies to your registered e-mail address.
Search
Criteria
The forum provides a search tool (Figure 15) that is separate from the AcrobatUsers.com search function. You can search all forum posts by a variety of criteria, including keyword or author, or you can search within specific forums by subject or message content, or both. You also can choose how you wish to sort and show your results.
Figure 15: The forum provides a search tool that is separate from the AcrobatUsers.com search feature.
Forums:
www.acrobatusers.com/forums/aucbb/
Forum Guidelines:
www.acrobatusers.com/community/forum_guidelines