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Blog: Adobe Acrobat

Under 64-bit Windows 7, I noticed the latest version of Acrobat Pro X (V10.1.2) becomes unresponsive for about 4-5 minutes after opening a PDF file.  Then everything is fine.  I found references to this problem being related to protected mode being used when opening PDF documents.  In the program's preferences, there's an Enhanced Security section.  When I disabled enhanced security, PDF documents started opening quickly.

Then I went back and turned enhanced security back on and added folder paths to the Privileged Locations you can specify as part of enhanced security and was able to open files from these locations without the delays.  Testing is not conclusive since I have been unable to make it go from fast to slow predictably.  However, turning off enhanced security was conclusive.

Networking, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe, Windows 7,
 

I received some scanned PDF documents from a customer who had scanned them at high resolution. When I tried to use Acrobat to OCR the files, I got an error message stating the pages were larger than the 45" maximum. I was able to OCR the files once I printed them to individual PDFs (which put them into 8.5X11 pages).

General, PDF, Adobe Acrobat, OCR,
 

From Adobe:

A critical vulnerability has been identified in Adobe Reader 9 and Acrobat 9 and earlier versions. This vulnerability would cause the application to crash and could potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system. There are reports that this issue is being exploited.

Adobe states that no update is currently available, but they expect to have an update released by March 11th, 2009. In the mean time, customers are encouraged to keep their virus definitions current and real-time scanning active.

For more information about specific vulnerabilities, please refer to the following websites: [more]
http://www.adobe.com/support/security/advisories/apsa09-01.html
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/905281

IT Security Alerts, Security and Compliance, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Reader,
 

Many times we end up scanning documents that customers send to us in response to our Audit Information Request.  The scanned documents are much more useful when they have been OCR-ed (Optical Character Reader) because then it is possible to search for words and terminology.  The OCR process is one more step in Acrobat and so when we run out of time, the documents do not get OCR-ed.

Adobe provides batch processing in many of its applications.  I found it in Acrobat Professional (in the title menu under Advanced).  You can define actions, in this case to OCR all the pdfs found in a folder (you specify).  Not only will it perform the action, but then you can define where it saves the new files and if you want it to rename the files (like “OriginalFileName-OCR”) attaching “-OCR.”

There are several pre-defined batches as well as the options to build your own.  Automating redundant tasks will save you time.

General, Adobe Acrobat,
 

We supply most of our electronic documents to customers in pdf format.  We also have been using watermarking documents as DRAFT during the write and rewrite process.  As we print word docs to pdf, the document becomes much larger (5 to 6 times bigger) as Adobe converts the DRAFT mark to a graphic on each page.  It can make it difficult for customers to print.

Using Adobe Acrobat Professional there is a feature that also allows you to create a watermark.  If you use Acrobat to create the watermark, the final file size is much smaller (less that half the size.  You find the watermark feature in Acrobat under Document in the Title menu.   There are several options.  You can input any text in the provided source box, click on “Fit to Page” and select color, transparency, etc.  Also, you can choose if you want the water mark to display on the screen, only when printed or both.
General, PDF, Adobe Acrobat,