PDF Questions

1. PDF Questions Submitted by our customers: Gus Lluberes

2. Q: I have a question for Tuesday's workshop. It is about links. I can link OK to a page but I am having some difficulty linking to a specific spot in the document by creating destinations and linking to them. Wonder if you could cover this or point me towards a good tutorial.

3. A: Linking To Specific Pages This is significantly simpler than linking to named destinations because it doesn't require any special steps to be taken in the preparation of the PDF file. I personally favor the page-linking method for this reason. In order tod link through to a specific PDF page, begin with the domain, as you would for any web link: • http://www.mydomain.com/ • Then add the name of the PDF document: • http://www.mydomain.com/myPDF.pdf • Then append "#page=" followed by the desired page number. For example, if you were looking to link to page 7: • http://www.mydomain.com/myPDF.pdf#page=7 • So in all, the HTML link code would be: • <a href="http://www.mydomain.com/myPDF.pdf#page=7">Link text</a> • This link goes to page 12 of an MDOT PDF file http://www.michigan.gov/documents/instructions_17182_7.pdf#page=12 Source: PlanetPDF

4. A: Linking to Named Destinations First up, you'll need to create the destination. To do this from within Acrobat: • Manually navigate through the PDF for the desired location, and magnification • Version 5.x: Window > Destinations Version 6.0: Go to View > Navigation Tabs > Destinations • Under Options, choose Scan Document • Once this is completed, select New Destination from the Options menu and enter an appropriate name Now that you have created your destination, you can link to it using a similar syntax to that used for page linking. After the name of the PDF, append "#nameddest=" and the name of your chosen destination. So, if your PDF has a named destination, "TOC", that points to a table of contents, then your link code will look like this: <a href="http://www.mydomain.com/myPDF.pdf#nameddest=TOC">Link text</a>

5. Q:Other than entering words into the "CMA Keywords" field when creating a PDF asset within the CMA system, is there any way to "tweak" a PDF file so that it is more likely to turn up in the results of the portal search engine? A: Each PDF file is saved with “metadata”. This data is the first piece of information the search engine finds. Since PDF files are TEXT (unless scanned and not captured as text), search engines will do a full text search on the documents.

6. Search Criteria Search Results

7. Q: Am I correct in understanding that the search engine does not recognize the text in a PDF document as text, so it doesn't matter how many times a certain word might appear within the document (in terms of showing up in a search)? A: Yes, you are wrong. PDF document IS text and as text, the search engine can search the entire contents. However, the search engine cannot read the mind of the user. Good search results rely on good document preparation as well as some skill on the part of the user. We are in the process of upgrading the current search engine so you may see more intelligence in the engine soon. But, this still does not guarantee more intelligence on the part of the user.

8. Q: What is a searchable pdf, as opposed to a graphic pdf? I've seen the terms discussed, but I don't really understand what they mean. If it is something that affects if my PDF document will be picked up by search engines, I'd like to understand what's going on there. A: A “searchable” PDF is text based. When a document is scanned into Acrobat, it is an image. Images cannot display text as they are bitmaps representations of the page. It is possible to “capture” a scanned page and convert it to text. This option makes your page searchable rather than an image. But, if you must scan a document and create a PDF of it, you still have the options to add the meta data to the document properties allowing for better results in the search.

9. Q: The Toxic Substances Information Directory, located at www.michigan.gov/mdch-toxics, click on "Reports and Pubs." It is a listing of web-based resources, containing hundreds of web links. The original document was created in Excel (for formatting purposes - much easier to create and maintain in Excel), then converted into PDF using Acrobat Distiller 5.05. I would like to have it so that these links open up in a new browser window. The only information I've found on how to do this is at http://www.pdfzone.com/resources/tips_techniques/101405.htmlIt involves creating a blank html page for each link and changing the html code in the header - both things I can't do within the CMA system. Do you have any ideas on this, or should I stop wasting my time even thinking about it?

10. I would like to have it so that these links open up in a new browser window. A: Go to: Edit > Preferences > General > Options Uncheck “Open Cross Document Links in the same window”