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Printing Letter Head on Specific pages

ggerber
Registered: Nov 21 2008
Posts: 3

I am wondering if anyone has any ideas on this one ...

In an effort to become completely paperless, we have adopted printing almost exclusively to pdf. For documents which require letterhead, we print using a watermark or background to combine the letter or other document and the letterhead ...

However, this is currently quite cumbersome as in most of our multipage documents, we require letterhead only on specific pages or ranges of pages and NOT the entire document. So up to this time, we have been creating multiple documents for the one document required, then merging the documents after watermarks have already been applied.

Does anyone have any thought on how we might be able to streamline this process ... so for example:

ex1. a 5 page document - page 1: no letterhead, page 2-4: letterhead, page 5: no letterhead

ex2. every alternate page has letterhead (imagine printing on both sides of letterhead ... one side printed, the other without the corporate graphics.

we currently have both Acrobat 7.0 and 8.0 Standard ... willing to upgrade to whatever version if required.

My Product Information:
Acrobat Standard 8.0, Windows
lkassuba
ExpertTeam
Registered: Jun 28 2007
Posts: 3636
Are you looking to watermark as a batch process or manually? If you are doing this manually, the watermark capability in Acrobat 8 (not sure about v7) allows you to select a Page Range Option. So, in your first example, you could select pages 2-4 and apply the watermark. For your second example, you apply to only even or odd pages using the Page Range Options as well.

You can find more detail on this in Donna Baker's article [url=http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/acrobat/articles/acr8at_background.php]Adding a background or watermark to a PDF file[/url].

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

gkaiseril
Expert
Registered: Feb 23 2006
Posts: 4307
Since Acrobat 9 supports the Acrobat forms tool bar, you could also use hidden template page within the PDF to provide a template with the letter head and overlay that template on the pages that need a letter head using JavaScript thorough an added menu items or a custom tool bar buttons to provide a method to add a the template to a PDF and apply the PDF to a given page. All users will need a full version of Acrobat, since Reader can not use this feature under any circumstances.

George Kaiser

ggerber
Registered: Nov 21 2008
Posts: 3
Thank you both.
Ultimately, we would like to be able to - for example - being working on a document in Microsoft word, press print, and be able to print to PDF AND include the template on specific pages AT THIS POINT (rather than printing a preliminary PDF, launching the full acrobat program, then manually applying the watermark).

The page range option feature is very helpful and may be workable... if there is no other solution.

gkaiseril - is there a way to embed the script within the program call print function to merge the template with the newly created pdf layer?
ffpiehl
Registered: Aug 21 2009
Posts: 1
I want to apply a watermark using the Adobe printer driver. I cannot find explanation on how to do this. I have Adobe 8.1.
lkassuba
ExpertTeam
Registered: Jun 28 2007
Posts: 3636
ffpiehl wrote:
I want to apply a watermark using the Adobe printer driver. I cannot find explanation on how to do this. I have Adobe 8.1.
Are you asking if there is a way to add a watermark when printing a document to the Adobe PDF printer?

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

sbynyc
Registered: Sep 25 2009
Posts: 4
I'd like some assistance accomplishing the following task. I came to this thread because I'm looking to reduce printing of letterhead. I'm using Acrobat 9 Pro and WordPerfect 12. I want to be able end up with a letter on my letterhead that I can email as a PDF instead of printing.
I realize that I can't use Acrobat as a word processor. So I want to type a letter in WP12, print to PDF, and automatically have my letterhead appear in the final product.
Do I first scan in a sample of my existing letterhead? If so, then what do I do with it? How do I merge the draft letter I typed in WP12 with the letterhead saved in Acrobat?
Lastly, is it possible to save a letterhead as a PDF, open it and use the typewriter tool in Acrobat 9 Pro to assimilate a word processor or am I wasting my time there?
gkaiseril's response has me baffled because it is currently well beyond my knowledge of Acrobat features so please respond in basic English. Thanks.

Charles J. Jannace III, P.C.
www.jannace.com
cjannace [at] comcast [dot] net

lkassuba
ExpertTeam
Registered: Jun 28 2007
Posts: 3636
sbynyc wrote:
I'd like some assistance accomplishing the following task. I came to this thread because I'm looking to reduce printing of letterhead. I'm using Acrobat 9 Pro and WordPerfect 12. I want to be able end up with a letter on my letterhead that I can email as a PDF instead of printing.
I realize that I can't use Acrobat as a word processor. So I want to type a letter in WP12, print to PDF, and automatically have my letterhead appear in the final product.
Do I first scan in a sample of my existing letterhead? If so, then what do I do with it? How do I merge the draft letter I typed in WP12 with the letterhead saved in Acrobat?
Lastly, is it possible to save a letterhead as a PDF, open it and use the typewriter tool in Acrobat 9 Pro to assimilate a word processor or am I wasting my time there?
gkaiseril's response has me baffled because it is currently well beyond my knowledge of Acrobat features so please respond in basic English. Thanks.
The primary tool in Acrobat to watermark or add a background is used after a PDF has been created not during the creation process, which is not what you're looking for. To add content [i]during[/i] the creation process you can use an old process involving the Adobe PDF printer and a prologue.ps file but it's not simple to setup. For more information on this technique check out the following [url=http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/331/331150.php]technical note[/url]. Basically you're appending Postscript code (in this case it could be letterhead) to each file that you print.

You can also scan your letterhead to PDF and then use the typewriter tool within the PDF but keep in mind that although the typewriter tool has more functionality in Acrobat 9 it still does not compare to a word processing tool like WP.

Have you considered adding the letterhead directly to your WP template?

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

sbynyc
Registered: Sep 25 2009
Posts: 4
This is what I did this morning and it seems to work. Please tell me if this is fraught with peril or too amateurish.
1. I scanned in a piece of letterhead and saved it as a PDF.
2. I typed a draft letter in WP12 and printed to PDF.
3. The draft appears in Acrobat. I then add a Background by locating the letterhead file.
4. I add a stamp which is my signature.
5. Save as a PDF. Then I email it to the addressee and save a copy in the client's folder.

I'll look at the template in WP12 suggestion next but so far this seems to accomplish what I want.

Charles J. Jannace III, P.C.
www.jannace.com
cjannace [at] comcast [dot] net

sbynyc
Registered: Sep 25 2009
Posts: 4
Ms. Kassuba: I checked out the template feature in WordPerfect. It's way over my head. I'm sticking with the ease of use provided in Acrobat. Thanks for your suggestions.

Charles J. Jannace III, P.C.
www.jannace.com
cjannace [at] comcast [dot] net

lkassuba
ExpertTeam
Registered: Jun 28 2007
Posts: 3636
Sure, glad to hear you got things working by adding a background.

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