Converting Office X files on the Mac

If you’re using Microsoft Office X for Mac OS X (and you have to because Acrobat 6 runs only on OS X), you have access to both the Convert to Adobe PDF and the Convert to Adobe PDF and E-mail buttons on the PDFMaker 6.0 toolbar in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint after you install Acrobat 6.0 on your computer. Note that although PDFMaker 6 does not support the review and commenting features found in the Windows version, you can use these buttons to convert Office documents to PDF files and e-mail them as you would using Office for Windows. You do not, however, have access to an Adobe PDF menu as you do in the Windows version of Office. This means that you have no way to change the conversion settings as described previously in this chapter. Mac users (I can hear you screaming at Adobe for Acrobat feature parity with your Windows brethren) can, however, choose Acrobat Distiller 6 preset Conversion Settings or any custom conversion settings you’ve created in the Print dialog box of your Office X program. To do so, follow these steps:

1. With your Office X document open, choose File➪Print or press Ô+P to open the Print dialog box.
2. Select Adobe PDF on the Printer drop-down list.
3. Select PDF Options on the drop-down list labeled Pages and Copies. The PDF Options command is added to the list when you choose Adobe PDF as your printer. After selecting PDF Options, the Print dialog box .
4. Click the Adobe PDF Setting drop-down list to select a preset Distiller Conversion Setting or one you’ve customized. If you hover the mouse pointer over a conversion setting in this list, a screen tip displays the directory path for that conversion setting’s location on your hard drive. You also have the option to choose Launch Nothing or Acrobat on the After PDF Creation drop-down list to specify whether or not you want to view your converted Office document PDF in Acrobat.
5. Click either the Save as PDF or Print button to open the Save to File dialog box. If you want to see how your converted Office document is displayed in Acrobat, click the Preview button.
6. Type a filename in the Save As text box, choose a location for the finished PDF file (the default is your desktop), and click the Save button to convert your Office Document to PDF. PDF files that are created from Office X documents do not retain their document structure tags. This means that those PDF files will not have the capability of being reflowed in Acrobat or Adobe Reader.

Converting Office documents to PDF and sending them for review

The third option for creating a PDF file with PDFMaker enables you to create a PDF from an Office document and use the resulting PDF file to initiate a review cycle by sending it out to reviewers. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Choose Adobe PDF➪Convert to Adobe PDF and Send for Review in the Office application or click the Convert to Adobe PDF and Send for Review button on the PDFMaker 6.0 toolbar. If you haven’t saved your document, an Acrobat PDFMaker alert dialog box prompts you to do so. Click Yes. The Save Adobe PDF File As dialog box appears.
2. Edit the filename of the converted PDF file in the Name text box and select the folder in which to save it on your hard drive. If you don’t edit the filename, PDFMaker gives the new PDF file the same name as its Office counterpart but with the .pdf filename extension. Note that by default, filename extensions aren’t displayed in Windows XP.
3. Click the Save button to close the Save Adobe PDF File As dialog box and start the conversion process. When the PDFMaker finishes distilling your Office document, it opens the Send by E-mail for Review dialog box. Note that if you haven’t entered a return e-mail address in Acrobat Preferences, you will be prompted to enter one prior to seeing the dialog box.
4. Enter e-mail addresses of those you wish to send the PDF file to for review, a subject, and message in the appropriate text boxes. The standard e-mail address text boxes (To, Cc, and Bcc) are provided. The Subject and Message to Reviewers text boxes have default entries that you can use or edit.
5. Click the Send button to close the Send by E-mail for Review dialog box. An alert from your e-mail client program appears, asking you to verify that you want to send an e-mail with the attached PDF file.
6. Click the Send button (again) to send out the attached PDF file for review. The Send for Review dialog box, also appears in Acrobat 6 when you choose File➪Send by E-mail for Review. For a complete rundown on commenting and reviewing features in Acrobat 6 as well as the Acrobat Comments menu that appears in Microsoft Word.

You can add to the notes, links, and bookmarks that are carried over from the original Word document in the converted PDF document using the annotation features in Acrobat 6

The PowerPoint-specific application settings

The following PowerPoint-only options appear in the Settings tab on the Acrobat PDFMaker dialog box when you choose Adobe PDF➪Change Conversion Settings in Microsoft PowerPoint:

• Save Slide Transitions in Adobe PDF: Ensures that the animated transitions setup in a PowerPoint presentation are carried over in the converted PDF file.
• Convert Multimedia to PDF Multimedia: Ensures that all multimedia elements in a PowerPoint presentation are converted to Adobe Multimedia in a PowerPoint-generated PDF file. Adobe Multimedia format adds interactive features to graphics, sounds, and movies that enhance their appearance in PDF documents.
• PDF Layout Based on PowerPoint Printer Settings: Ensures that page layout in a PowerPoint-generated PDF file mirrors the printer settings specified in the PowerPoint presentation.

Using the Bookmarks tab in PDFMaker

The Bookmarks tab is unique to the Word version of the Acrobat PDFMaker dialog box. Its options enable you to convert the headings and paragraph styles found in the original Word document into bookmarks in the resulting PDF document.
The Bookmarks tab contains the following options:

• Convert Word Headings to Bookmarks: This option automatically converts all Word Heading styles used in the original document to bookmarks in the final PDF document. When this check box is selected (as it is by default), all Heading styles used in the document are selected in the list box below. To restrict bookmark conversion to just particular heading levels, deselect the check boxes for all the Heading styles you don’t want used in this list.
• Convert Word Styles to Bookmarks: This option automatically converts all styles (not just the heading styles) used in the original Word document to bookmarks in the final PDF document. When you select this check box, the check boxes for all the styles used in your document are selected in list box below. To restrict bookmark conversion to just particular paragraph styles, deselect the check boxes for all the individual styles you don’t want used in this list.
  

While there are no Excel-specific options on the Acrobat PDFMaker dialog box when you choose Adobe PDF➪Change Conversion Settings in Microsoft Excel, there is an important new command on the Adobe PDF menu —Convert Entire Workbook. The default PDF conversion setting for an Excel document converts only the active worksheet. If you want to convert all the worksheets in your Excel workbook to Adobe PDF, choose this command

Using word tab in PDFMaker

The Word tab in the Adobe PDFMaker dialog box contains a bunch of check box options that enable you to control what Word-specific information is carried over to the new PDF documents you’ll be generating.
The Word Features area on the Word tab contains the following settings for converting very specific word processing features into PDF equivalents:

• Convert Comments to Notes: Converts all comments added to the Word document into notes in the resulting PDF document.
• Convert Linked Text Boxes to Article Threads: Convert all notations made in the text boxes found in the Word document into articles that control the way the text is read in Acrobat 6 or Adobe Reader 6.
• Convert Cross-References and Table of Contents to Links: Changes all cross-references and any table of contents found in the Word document into active hyperlinks in the resulting PDF document.
• Convert Footnote and Endnote Links: Converts all footnotes and endnotes in the Word document into active hyperlinks in the resulting PDF document.

The Comments area of the Word tab displays all the comments in the current Word document and lets you choose how they will be displayed in the converted PDF document. You can choose whether or not to include the comments, whether they appear open, and also specify a background color.

Using PDFMaker Security tab

The Security tab in the Adobe PDFMaker dialog box contains options that enable you to password-protect the converted PDF file (so that only the people you give the password can open the file) and set the file permissions (which control how the document can be edited and whether or not it can be printed). The options on this tab are identical to the ones found in the Adobe PDF - Security dialog box. Note that the Security tab options are exactly the same whether you are converting a Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint document to PDF.

Using PDFMaker Security tab

The Security tab in the Adobe PDFMaker dialog box contains options that enable you to password-protect the converted PDF file (so that only the people you give the password can open the file) and set the file permissions (which control how the document can be edited and whether or not it can be printed). The options on this tab are identical to the ones found in the Adobe PDF - Security dialog box. Note that the Security tab options are exactly the same whether you are converting a Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint document to PDF.