Getting Started in Acrobat X

Getting Started in Acrobat X

Donna Baker – October 10, 2010

So you've just bought Acrobat X.You've never worked in Acrobat before, but you use a lot of PDF files, and want to work with other things you've heard about like commenting and making forms.

You open the program, and now what?

Well, stay tuned for the next few minutes, and I'll show you how to get started.

When Acrobat X opens, your screen shows a couple of toolbars at the top, some labels on the right side, and a Welcome window.

I'm using Acrobat X Pro on Windows, but it looks nearly the same on Mac.

The Welcome window shows over the blank program screen.

It's like a switchboard to help you get started.

You can either open one of your recently-opened files (if you have any) or use one of the pathways into the program from the list.

When you open Acrobat, you're most likely going to do one of the tasks from the Getting Started list on the Welcome screen, so let's check them out.

One of the first things you're probably going to do is make a new PDF file.

Click Create PDF and you'll see this dialog box open.

If you're not sure if you can convert a file to PDF directly, click the Files of type dropdown arrow.

On a Mac, you click the Show dropdown arrow.

You can see there are lots of different types of files you can open directly, ranging from Microsoft Office files to different image formats and 3D files.

Pick a file type, or leave the All Supported Formats option.

Then locate and select the file you want to convert, and click Open.

Next you'll see Acrobat processing and converting the file to PDF.

Finally, the file opens in the Acrobat window.

Isn't that easy?

You can go on to do more with the file, but I'll close it without saving so I can show you more options.

Next on the Getting Started list is creating a PDF Portfolio.

You use a portfolio as a container to hold a number of other documents, both PDF and other formats.

Let's take a look.

Click Create PDF Portfolio.

The first thing to do is pick the layout.

As you'll see in other videos, it's easy to change your layout,so there's no pressure here!

Click through the layout options and you'll see a thumbnail preview of the different choices and a short description.

You can also use a custom layout, but we're sticking to basics today.

You can either add the files now, or just click Finish to start the portfolio layout, and add the files later.

Let's quickly pick a couple of files now.

Click Add files to open a dialog box.

Locate and select the files you want to use, and click Finish.

The dialog box closes, and Acrobat opens the PDF Portfolio layout.

You'll find dozens of ways you can modify and customize the portfolio.

But for now, let's close this file without saving.

One thing you're sure to do at some time is combine a few files into a single PDF file.

Let's see how to do that now.

Click Combine Files into PDF.

In the dialog box, we're going to locate and add some files.

Click Add Files to open a list.

You see you can get files from lots of sources, not just ones on your computer.

I'll click Add Files.

Now I can locate and select files from my computer.

Select the files you want to use, and click Add Files.

Once you're ready, click Combine Files.

Acrobat X processes the files, and then opens it as a single PDF file in the program window.

Once the file opens in Acrobat, click the Bookmarks panel.

When the panel opens, you'll see that each of the files shows with its own bookmark.

I'll close this file now, and we'll check out one more way to start a new PDF file.

You can also start a PDF form directly from the Welcome window.

Click Create PDF Form.

If I had a document open already, I could start from that.

Otherwise, I can scan a paper form to convert it to a PDF, or open a file.

Since I need a file to start my form, I have to click Browse to open a dialog box to locate and select the file I want to use.

I've picked my file, and now I click Open.

The file I chose now shows on the dialog box, and I can go on to the next step.

I don't have to do anything, except to wait for Acrobat to convert the file to a PDF.

Since I chose to start a PDF Form, Acrobat automatically applies some commands to the file, along with creating the PDF document.

Click OK to close the dialog box.

Now you'll see that in addition to creating the PDF file, the program shows tools for working on the form, a list of Form Tasks, and the list of fields added to the file automatically.

I'm going to close the file without saving it again, and we're back to where we started.

One final tip: You don't need to start from the Welcome window.

Instead, you can click the File menu, and then select one of the options from the Create menu.

Or, you can click the Create task button, and pick a starting point from the list.