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Portfolio Cover Sheet

Forum Index > PDF Portfolios > Portfolio Cover Sheet
2008-10-23 16:18:40
jpjarosz
Registered: Oct 23 2008
Posts: 5
Answered

In Acrobat v8, you could choose to create a PDF Package that allowed you to choose whether to use a default cover sheet or use the first PDF file (in its entirety) as the cover sheet (see http://www.acrobatusers.com/articles/2006/10/pdf_creation_features/index.php and http://www.acrobatusers.com/blogs/tedpadova/2006/10/11/pdf-packages-and-learning-modules/).

In Acrobat v9, it no longer appears to be an option to choose a cover sheet -- the default cover sheet is [i]always[/i] a part of the portfolio. I am happy to say that I have been able to successfully create a Portfolio that emulates a v8 PDF Package in that I can define the first file from the portfolio file list to be initially displayed. To boot in v9, this file remains a part of the portfolio file list, which I think this is an improvement over version 8 which made the first file the actual cover sheet (which was a little odd if you didn't want an actual cover sheet but did want to define an initial document to display; when the audience navigated away from a "document" cover sheet, not all of them realized that the document was not a part of the package's file list).

However, [i]I was wondering if there is a way in Acrobat v9 to omit the default cover sheet (to reduce file size) or select a custom cover sheet in addition to any other files that are desired to be put in the portfolio file list.[/i] I know that there is a customizable "Welcome" page in v9, but that page can only be seen by Reader/Acrobat v9, and the portfolio creator may desire that the initial display always persist across sessions (the Welcome page can be dismissed from being viewed across sessions by selecting "Don't show Welcome Page again").

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro Extended 9.0, Windows
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2008-10-24 10:39:13
#1
lkassuba
ExpertTeam
Registered: Jun 28 2007
Posts: 3636
Joel Geraci explains how to do this on his blog in the article [url=http://blogs.adobe.com/pdfdevjunkie/acrobat/pdf_portfolios/]PDF Portfolios and Backward Compatibility - Part 1[/url].

Lori Kassuba is an AUC Expert and Community Manager for AcrobatUsers.com.

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2008-10-24 14:35:03
#2
jpjarosz
Registered: Oct 23 2008
Posts: 5
Great--thanks for the answer. It's too bad Adobe removed the so much of the cover sheet editing capabilities & sort of hid it from the creator--it would've been nice to instead have seen some of the shortcomings addressed with improvements. Cover sheets seem great for a static overview of the portfolio contents. Backwards compatibility is also one of Adobe's strong suites, so it surprises me that this has happened.
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2008-10-29 16:29:14
#3
amwang
Registered: Mar 20 2008
Posts: 2
Can you give me more context of your use cases for the cover sheet?

Thanks,
Amy Wang
Acrobat Product Manager
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2008-10-30 15:57:15
#4
jpjarosz
Registered: Oct 23 2008
Posts: 5
My use case for a cover sheet is pretty much the same as the use case for a Welcome Page--just to introduce certain documents in the portfolio, but with a static presentation (such as a fixed position thumbnails linked to the actual doc) rather than a dynamic, Flash based presentation. Our corporation has upgraded all users to Reader v8. Until v9 becomes the corporate standard, portfolios are effectively restricted in use to the features available in version 8 (cover pages). In addition, Flash increases the size a bit. So though flash-based portfolios are very appealing to the eye, there's relatively little incentive to release them inside our corporation at this time.
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