Acumen Journal
The Acumen Journal is a free monthly technical publication in PDF format for customers and friends of Acumen Training.
Each issue of the Journal has two articles, one each on PostScript and Acrobat:
- PostScript
Tech is an article on some aspect of PostScript programming.
Acrobat User is an article on the advanced use of some part of Acrobat.
Mailing List - If you would like to be added to the Acumen Journal mailing list, click here. You’ll be notified whenever a new issue becomes available.
Quick List - For a quick list of the Acrobat and PostScript topics in all the issues, click here.
Any comments, questions about PostScript or Acrobat, or suggestions for future articles, feel free to contact John at Acumen Training.
- The Acrobat User - Dictionary Look-Up and Other Text-Select Tool Marvels
- Right-clicking with the Text-Select tool yields some remarkably useful commands that are often overlooked (at least by me).
- PostScript Tech - Automatic Stroke Adjustment
- This feature automatically fixes a hard-to-diagnose rendering problem associated with hairlines. You just have to know to turn it on!
- Download (.zip;
330k)
Note: Best viewed with Acrobat 6 (including Reader); will work with Acrobat 5 or later.
- The Acrobat User - Trapping in Acrobat 8
- Trapping is a purposeful overlap built into abutting blocks of color to accommodate the stretching and shifting of paper as it moves through a printing press. Acrobat can automatically add trapping to a PDF file at print time. This month we see how to use this feature.
- PostScript Tech - PostScript and PDF: a Comparison
- A commonly-encountered misconception is that PDF is a subset, superset, or other flavor of PostScript. This is not so and this month’s article will briefly compare the two file formats.
- Download (.zip;
440k)
Note: Best viewed with Acrobat 6 (including Reader); will work with Acrobat 5 or later
1/9/08: Made a minor fix to the PostScript article. Thanks to Rob Daykin for pointing out the problem.
- The Acrobat User - (JavaScript) Creating a “Print-Only” Document
- I once needed to send a former student a PDF document that they could print, but not keep in electronic form (that is, as the original PDF file). This issue examines an implementation of a “read-once-print-once” PDF file. It uses JavaScript to do its magic.
- PostScript Tech - The imagemask Operator
- This important variant of the image operator is important to the implementation of such things as bitmap fonts and other cases where the background must show through the “white” parts of an image.
- Download (.zip;
166k)
Note: Best viewed with Acrobat 6 (including Reader); will work with Acrobat 5 or later.
- The Acrobat User - Acrobat 8's Typewriter Tool
- This Acrobat 8 tool seems initially to have no reason for existing. Once you realize what it's for, however, you find yourself using it more and more until it becomes one of your favorite tools. This issue’s short article discusses how much better your life can become with this tool.
- PostScript Tech - Fun & Games With pathforall
- The little-used pathforall operator lets you step through the components of the current path, performing an operation on each step. This allows you to do some fun and occasionally very useful things.
- Download (.zip;
256k)
Note: Best viewed with Acrobat 6 (including Reader); will work with Acrobat 5 or later.
- The Acrobat User - Adding Printer Marks to a Document in Acrobat 8
- Acrobat 8 has a useful collection of tools aimed at professional print production. Among the features available through the Print Production Toolbar is the ability to add crop marks and other printer marks to a PDF document.
- PostScript Tech - PostScript Resources, Part 2
- We continue our discussion of PostScript resources, learning how to store fonts, forms, and other resources on a RIP’s hard disk for use by later PostScript programs.
- Download (.zip;
356k)
Note: Best viewed with Acrobat 6 (including Reader); will work with Acrobat 5 or later.
- The Acrobat User - Conducting an Email-Based Document Review
- Among the improvements in Acrobat 8 is the increased ease with which you can conduct a document review with a stable of reviewers. This issue steps through the process of conducting such a review via email.
- PostScript Tech - PostScript Resources, Part I
- PostScript resources are puzzling to many programmers. They are easy to create and use, but its not immediately clear why you would want to do so. This article begins a two-part series on how resources work and why they’re exciting.
- Download (.zip;
732k)
Note: Best viewed with Acrobat 6 (including Reader); will work with Acrobat 5 or later.
- The Acrobat User - Customizing Acrobat 8 Toolbars
- Acrobat 8 makes it remarkably simple to add and remove controls from its toolbars. This article demonstrates how to do this.
- PostScript Tech - Extracting Text From a PostScript File
- In this article, we see how to use redefinitions of PostScript operators to extract text from a PostScript file.
- Download (.zip;
412k)
Note: Best viewed with Acrobat 6 (including Reader); will work with Acrobat 5 or later.
12/15/06: Fixed too-low-resolution images, caused by Acrobat's "Reduce Size" feature.
- The Acrobat User - Acrobat Page Capture
- Acrobat's built-in OCR function allows you to turn a folder of scanned paper documents into selectable, searchable text and graphics.
- PostScript Tech - Explicitly Masked Images, Part 2
- We conclude last June's discussion of masked images, this time seeing how to apply the feature to real images. This will entail learning about the ReusableStreamDecode filter.
- Download (.zip;
604k)
Note: Best viewed with Acrobat 6 (including Reader); will work with Acrobat 5 or later.
- The Acrobat User - Setting Up Form Auto-Completion
- As you type text into a PDF form field, Acrobat can suggest entries based on the characters you have typed so far. This issue, we see how to turn this feature on.
- PostScript Tech - Creating Text Styles With makefont
- This month’s very short article discusses how to use the makefont operator to create font styles, such as condensed, oblique, and subscript.
- Download (.zip;
328k)
Note: Best viewed with Acrobat 6 (including Reader); will work with Acrobat 5 or later.
- The Acrobat User - Page Actions
- A Page Action automatically triggers when a particular page in your PDF file opens. They are easy to create, although the means of doing so has been somewhat hidden since Acrobat 6.
- PostScript Tech - Explicitly Masked Images, Part 1
- PostScript languagelevel 3 introduced the ability of images to include a 1-bit mask that indicates what parts of the image should be painted.
- Download (.zip;
360k)
Note: Best viewed with Acrobat 6 (including Reader); will work with Acrobat 5 or later.
6/15/06: Fixed a few typos and added a note regarding the "reset counter" JavaScript.
- The Acrobat User - PDF/X and PDF/A
- Unnecessary mystery surrounds these cgats standards. They are really just normal PDF files that agree to certain restrictions.
- PostScript Tech - Global VM
- Global VM is a part of virtual memory that is not subject to the save and restore operators. Why would you ever want to bypass these important memory management operators? This month we’ll see.
- Download (.zip;
538k)
Note: Best viewed with Acrobat 6 (including Reader); will work with Acrobat 4 or later.
- The Acrobat User - JavaScript: "All/None-of-the-above" checkboxes
- Many questionnaires have items that require "All of the above" and "None of the above" responses. This month we shall see how to program interactive versions of these as Acrobat checkboxes.
- PostScript Tech - Setting text with a PrintParagraph routine
- We do basic text layout with a procedure that takes a string of text and prints its contents between specified left and right margins.
- Download (.zip;
360k)
Note: Best viewed with Acrobat 6 (including Reader); will work with Acrobat 4 or later.
- The Acrobat User - JavaScript: Adding Menu Items to Acrobat
- The Acrobat JavaScript interface allows us to add items to the various menus in Adobe Acrobat. To demonstrate, we’ll add a “Flatten pages” command to the Document menu.
- PostScript Tech - Drawing Dotted Lines with setlinecap and setdash
- PostScript allows us to stroke paths with a dashed line, but does not give us direct support for dotted lines, made up of little round dots. This month we look at an easy, but unobvious, trick for producing dotted lines.
- Download (.zip;
380k)
Note: Best viewed with Acrobat 6 (including Reader); will work with Acrobat 4 or later.
- The Acrobat User - Locking Form Fields & Comments With flattenPages
- An interesting way of “locking” form fields and comments in a PDF file is to convert them to graphics on the pdf page. Instead of the original form fields, you now have graphic objects that look like the original fields, complete with information.
- PostScript Tech - Handling PostScript Errors, Part 2
- We continue our examination of how to override PostScript’s reporting of errors. This time, we see how to print an error message on the current page.
- Download (.zip;
460k)
Note: Best viewed with Acrobat 6 (including Reader); will work with Acrobat 4 or later.
- The Acrobat User - Image Resampling in Acrobat Distiller
- Distiller and many other programs that create PDF files allow you to resample the images placed in that file. Most people are vague about what resampling is and how it differs from compression. This month we look at this powerful feature.
- PostScript Tech - Handling PostScript Errors, Part 1
- The default PostScript error handler typically sends the name of the error and the offending command to the output stream. This month and next, we’ll see how to write our own error handler to report on additional information and print the message to the current page.
- Download (.zip;
456k)
Note: Best viewed with Acrobat 6 (including Reader); will work with Acrobat 4 or later.
4/7/05: Fixed a problem with the zip file that kept some people from opening it.
- The Acrobat User - Exporting Form Data to a Spreadsheet in Acrobat 7
- Acrobat 7 lets you convert a set of fdf form data files into a single, comma-delimited file that may be imported into your favorite spreadsheet. This is a great aid for those who don’t have (or want) server-side processing software.
- PostScript Tech - A Bulletproof Minimum Linewidth
- People who work with driver output may need to impose a minimum linewidth so that hairlines don’t disappear. This is relatively easy to do, but making it work regardless of the current state of User Space is a little tricky; we shall use the rarely-seen dtransform operator.
- Download (.zip;
412k)
Note: Best viewed with Acrobat 6 (including Reader); will work with Acrobat 4 or later.
1/5/05: The name of the Acrobat sample file is now correct.
- The Acrobat User - JavaScript: Creating a Nagware Document, Part 2
- This month we finish the nagware document we started in the previous issue. This Acrobat document periodically asks the user for payment, eventually rendering itself unreadable if the user doesn’t type in a serial number.
- PostScript Tech - Using EPS Files in Handwritten PostScript Code
- People who do variable data printing frequently do so with handwritten PostScript code. Encapsulated PostScript files provide a very convenient way to include in these files logos and other graphics created in applications such as Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.
- Download (.zip;
540k)
Note: Best viewed with Acrobat 6 (including Reader); will work with Acrobat 4 or later.
11/22/04: Fixed a few cosmetic problems.
- The Acrobat User - JavaScript: Creating a Nagware Document, Part 1
- This month and next, we create a PDF-based shareware document that repeatedly asks for money. If ignored, the document becomes increasingly strident, eventually rendering itself unreadable.
- PostScript Tech - Colorizing Images with Separation and DeviceN
- This month we present a useful, though little-known technique, using the Separation and DeviceN colorspaces to modify image colors. Among other things, this lets us simulate printing images against a colored background.
- Download (.zip;
584k)
Note: Best viewed with Acrobat 6 (including Reader); will work with Acrobat 4 or later.
- The Acrobat User - JavaScript: The Acrobat global object
- The Acrobat JavaScript global object allows your Acrobat form to retain information across Acrobat sessiona. It also allows you to pass information from one form to another. This is exactly as vastly useful as it sound.
- PostScript Tech - Color Key Image Masking
- PostScript Level 3 introduced the ability to specify that certain colors within an image should not be painted. This can make it relatively easy to mask out the background of an image, painting only the image's foreground subject.
- Download (.zip;
396k)
Note: Best viewed with Acrobat 6 (including Reader); will work with Acrobat 4 or later.
- The Acrobat User - Acrobat 6 Layers and Forms
- Acrobat 6 has added support for Layers in PDF files. This allows the easy, wholesale hiding and revealing of buttons and other features on a PDF page. This month we see how to manipulate these layers in an Acrobat form.
- PostScript Tech - Binary Tokens
- A PostScript program usually consists of a stream of ASCII characters. However, PostScript also has a little-known binary version in which numbers and names are represented as a stream of binary values. This can greatly reduce PostScript file size.
- Download (.zip;
626k)
Note: Best viewed with Acrobat 6 (including Reader); will work with Acrobat 4 or later.
- The Acrobat User - Preflighting, Part 2: Making Preflight Profiles
- Last issue, we saw how to use the Acrobat 6 Preflight feature. This month, we see how to tailor this feature to our specific needs by creating a preflight profile.
- PostScript Tech - CID-Keyed Fonts: a Primer
- In modern PostScript, multi-byte fonts are implemented as something called CID-keyed fonts. This month, we shall look at CIDFont resources, CMaps, and the other components that go into using a CID-keyed font.
- Download (.zip;
888k)
Note: Best viewed with Acrobat 6 (including Reader); will work with Acrobat 4 or later.
- 12/14/04: Fixed a confusing typo in the PostScript article. Thanks, Alexios.
February 2004
Issue
31
- The Acrobat User - Acrobat 6 Preflighting, Part 1
- Acrobat 6 introduced a built-in preflight feature that can give you a great deal of information about your PDF files and help you avoid problems. In this first part, we see how to run a preflight session and interpret its results.
- PostScript Tech - Setpagedevice and Mysteriously Blank Pages
- The setpagedevice operator is PostScript’s hook into printer-specific features. It brought a much-needed consistency to PostScript Level 2. It also introduced a rare but very strange problem in some files: pages that unaccountably print blank.
- Download (.zip;
456k)
Note: Best viewed with Acrobat 6 (including Reader). Will work with Acrobat 4 or later.
- The Acrobat User - JavaScripter: The Acrobat 6 Thermometer Object
- Acrobat 6 added a new user interface object to JavaScript: the Thermometer object. You can use this object to display the progress of a long process and is quite easy to use.
- PostScript Tech - String Concatenation and NullEncode
- String concatenation is remarkably awkward in PostScript, because there is no built-in support for this action in the language. This month we shall look at a procedure that does this using the NullEncode filter, of all things.
- Download (.zip;
293k)
Note: Best viewed with Acrobat 6 (including Reader). Will work with Acrobat 4 or later.
5/5/04: Security settings inexplicably denied printing. Fixed now.
- The Acrobat User - Creating Your Own Rubber Stamp Annotation
- One of the improvements in Acrobat 6 is that it is much easier to make your own rubber stamp annotations. This month, we make a "Nyah-Nyah" annotation.
- PostScript Tech - A Name Lookup Procedure
- This month we look at a procedure that takes a PostScript object as its argument, looks the object up in the dictionary stack, and returns the name of the object on the operand stack. Along the way, we’ll see an uncommon use for the stopped operator.
- Download (.zip; 320k)
- The Acrobat User - Acrobat 6 Zoom Tools
- Acrobat 6 and Adobe Reader introduce a couple of handy tools for conveniently zooming in on parts of a PDF document. These include a nicely implemented Loupe tool.
- PostScript Tech - Transfer Functions
- The PostScript transfer function is the mechanism by which a printer manufacturer accommodates the printing characterstics of a particular device. You can change this function to accomplish an number of special printing effects.
- Download (.zip; 480k)
- The Acrobat User - Acrobat 6 Pro’s JavaScript Debugger
- Acrobat 6 Pro introduces a debugger for working with JavaScripts. Similar to debuggers in other programming environments, this new tool is extremely useful to understanding how a script works and tracking down errors.
- PostScript Tech - Fully Justified Text in PostScript
- This month we shall see how to carry out a common typographic task in PostScript: setting fully justified text. This will give us an excuse to discuss the search operator.
- Download (.zip; 460k)
- The Acrobat User - Acrobat 6 Form Tools
- Acrobat 6 has overhauled the user interface associated with making form fields. This month we look at what’s new in making forms in the new Acrobat.
- PostScript Tech - Recursive Programming in PostScript
- Recursive algorithms can be addictive, once you get the hang of it. Many of these algorithms are graphical, making PostScript an excellent language for implementing them.
- Download (.zip; 703k)
- The Acrobat User - JavaScripter: Creating a Blinking Button
- This month introduces The JavaScripter: an occasional series of articles on using JavaScript in Acrobat. Our first article describes how to make a button that blinks. The technique applies to a variety of animation effects.
- PostScript Tech - A PostScript Profiler (Sort of)
- We create a PostScript header that, when placed in front of another piece of PostScript, counts the number of times each PostScript operator is executed. This gives us an excuse to see how to do a mass redefinition of PostScript operators.
- Download (.zip; 272k)
- The Acrobat User - Acrobat Spell Checking
- Acrobat has a seldom-used spelling checker that can examine the contents of text fields and annotations. It is easy to use and easy to integrate into a form’s user interface.
- PostScript Tech - The Miter Limit
- This mildly obscure PostScript parameter does not sound like something to which you would ever need to pay attention. Surprisingly, under some circumstances it can solve an otherwise intractable visual problem.
- Download (.zip; 280k)
- The Acrobat User - Batch Processing in Acrobat
- Acrobat has a quite useful, often overlooked batch processing ability that lets you apply a set of actions to the one or more PDF files. This month, we’ll see how to use it.
- PostScript Tech - Using Images in a PostScript Form, Part 3
- We finish our three-part series on incorporating images into a PostScript form. Our final installment describes a technique that will work on any Level 2 printer.
- Download (.zip; 362k)
- The Acrobat User - Password Protecting Acrobat Files
- A simple topic this month, but useful. We’ll see how to add a password to limit the access readers have to your Acrobat files.
- PostScript Tech - Using Images in a PostScript Form, Part 2
- We continue last month’s topic: how to incorporate images into a PostScript form. This month, we look at using the ReuseableStreamDecode filter.
- Download (.zip; 452k)
- The Acrobat User - Roll-Over Help, JavaScript Version
- Last month, we saw how to implement roll-over help using the “Show-Hide” field action. This month, we’ll see another way of doing roll-over help that is more efficient if you have many form fields on a page that need help.
- PostScript Tech - Using Images in a PostScript Form, Part 1
- This month we start a two-part article discussing how to use images in a PostScript form. A form’s PaintProc cannot usefully read the input stream, so how do you embed the image data in the form? We’ll see how this month.
- Download (.zip;
504k)
- The Acrobat User - Roll-Over Help
- Acrobat supplies automatic support for “tool-tip” help for form fields. A common alternative to tool-tip help is “roll-over” help that appears as soon as the mouse moves over a control. This month we’ll see one way of implementing this in Acrobat.
- PostScript Tech - Text Along an Arc
- Something fun this month: we’ll look at one method of printing text along an arc. Along the way, we’ll discuss a bit about the nature of PostScript procedures.
- Download (.zip;
284k)
- The Acrobat User - Automatically Checking the Acrobat Version
- Each version of Acrobat has added features that you may wish to use in your documents. How do you ensure that the person reading your file has a sufficiently-modern version of Acrobat? This month we see how to do this.
- PostScript Tech - Converting PFB Files to PostScript
- It is easy to convert Windows-style font files to PostScript that may be embedded in another PostScript file or downloaded to a printer.
- Download (.zip; 236k)
- The Acrobat User - Embedding Arbitrary Data in PDF Files
- Among Acrobat’s least-used features is the ability to embed spreadsheets, Quark documents, Words files, and any other kind of data in an Acrobat document.
- PostScript Tech - Isolating PostScript Errors With SubFileDecode
- Continuing last month’s discussion, we use the SubFileDecode filter to limit the effect of PostScript errors. A PostScript error need not kill the remainder of the print job.
- Download (.zip; 328k)
- 7/2/02:
Changed the security settings so that you can actually extract the
Acrobat article’s data object.
6/1/03: Fixed a bug in the sample code.
- The Acrobat User - Avoiding Font Problems with Document Fonts
- The Acrobat Document Fonts dialog box supplies information that lets you head off common font problems in your PDF files.
- PostScript Tech - Skipping Blocks of Code With SubFileDecode
- PostScript output often needs to have two different sets of procedure definitions to accommodate, for example, different PostScript languagelevels. This month we look at an efficient way of conditionally skipping large blocks of PostScript code.
- Download
(.zip; 280k)
- The Acrobat User - Compression in Acrobat
- Many designers believe that compression must inevitably reduce the quality of their PDF artwork. Not so! This month we examine how compression works and how to ensure it has no effect on visual quality.
- PostScript Tech - Composite Fonts
- Originally introduced as support for Kanji, composite fonts are incredibly useful for printing Roman text.
- Download (.zip; 236k)
- The Acrobat User - Combining Multiple PostScript Files Into a Single PDF File
- Acrobat Distiller implements a special-purpose PostScript command you can use to combine several PostScript files into a single PDF file.
- PostScript Tech - Making an Outline Font
- This month we see how to turn any Type 1 font into an outline font. The show operator will print outlined text in that font. There’s also a mailbag entry about more uses for the double-slash.
- Download (.zip; 220k)
- The Acrobat User - Acrobat “WebLinks”
- Adobe Acrobat can automatically scan your PDF file and add links to web locations anywhere a recognizable URL appears in text.
- PostScript Tech - Early Name Lookup With //Double Slash
- PostScript has a little-used double-slash delimiter that lets you do define-time name lookup of constants within procedures. This month we’ll see how to use this to reduce name lookup at execution time.
- Download
(.zip; 160k)
- The Acrobat User - Acrobat 5 Hairlines, Revisited
- Last September, we discussed a fix for the too-thick hairlines displayed by Acrobat 5. Since then, several people have pointed out cases where our fix doesn’t work (Microsoft Word, for example). This month, we extend our fix to include some of the exceptions.
- PostScript Tech - Saving PostScript Code to Disk
- Rather than repeatedly transmitting EPS files or other often-used PostScript code, you can save your PostScript code to the rip’s disk and execute it from there. This month we’ll see how to do this.
- Download (.zip; 148k)
- The Acrobat User - “Document Open” Properties
- Acrobat gives you quite a bit of control over what a PDF file should look like when it is first opened. You can hide tool bars and menus, center the document on the screen, and control the initial window view. Let’s see how to do this.
- PostScript Tech - Reencoding Fonts, Part 2
- Last month, we learned the basics of adding characters to a font’s Encoding array. This month, we’ll look at a more efficient technique that lets us match a font’s encoding to the host computer system.
- Download (.zip; 262k)
- The Acrobat User - Acrobat Signatures, Part 2
- One of Acrobat’s more interesting features is support for digital signatures. This month, we finish a two-part series in how to use this feature.
- PostScript Tech - Reencoding Fonts, Part 1
- This is the first of a two-part series on how to print the accented and other “unencoded” characters in a PostScript font. This month we’ll see the basics; in December, we’ll look at a more efficient technique appropriate to driver output.
- Download (.zip; 320k)
- The Acrobat User - Acrobat Signatures, Part 1
- One of Acrobat’s more interesting features is support for digital signatures. This month, we start a two-part series in how to use this feature.
- PostScript Tech - Centering Text Vertically
- This month we’ll look at a perennial favorite: how to center text vertically. Along the way, we’ll take a look at some otherwise seldom-used operators, pathbbox and flattenpath.
- Download (.zip; 266k)
- The Acrobat User - Fixing Acrobat 5’s Line Widths
- Acrobat 5 tends to draw lines too thick, compared to Acrobat 4. This month we’ll see how to fix this.
- PostScript Tech - Changing Character Widths with a Metrics Dictionary
- PostScript provides a little-used mechanism for overriding the character widths in a font. By providing a dictionary named Metrics, you can specify your own character widths.
- Download (.zip; 240k)
- The Acrobat User - Converting Blends to Smooth Shading
- Distiller can convert blends in QuarkXpress, Illustrator, CorelDraw, and Freehand documents into PDF’s own native “Smooth Shading” format, which is fast, compact, and extremely good looking. Here we see how to turn this feature on.
- PostScript Tech - BeginPage and EndPage
- These two procedures are amazingly useful. With them, you can do everything from add a watermark to print n-up. Let’s see how they work and use them to do 2-up printing.
- Download (.zip; 181k)
- The Acrobat User - Creating Your Own Rubber Stamp Annotations
- Among Acrobat's annotations types is "Rubber Stamp," which lets you place a picture on the page as an annotation. This month we'll see how to add our own pictures to the predefined stamps supplied by Adobe.
- PostScript Tech - Adding Characters to a Type 1 Font
- This month we answer a common question: how do you add a character to a Type 1 font?
- Download (.zip; 237k)
- The Acrobat User - Making PostScript for PDF, Part 2
- We conclude our pair of articles on how to make PostScript files for conversion to PDF with Distiller, PDF Creator, etc. This month we’ll discuss printer driver settings for Microsoft Windows.
- PostScript Tech - Making eexec-encrypted PostScript Files
- The PostScript eexec operator executes encrypted PostScript. It can be used to hide your PostScript code from casual inquiry. This month we discuss the eexec encryption algorithm and present C code that converts a PostScript file into an encrypted PostScript file suitable for handing to eexec.
- Download (.zip; 204k)
- The Acrobat User - Making PostScript for PDF
- Behind most professional-grade PDF files is a PostScript file. What settings should you pick in the Macintosh and Windows Print dialog boxes when you make a Distiller-bound PostScript file? We'll do Macintosh this month and Windows next.
- PostScript Tech - Case Statements in PostScript
- Because PostScript has no case construct, many PostScript programs contain ugly, nested ifelse's. You can replace these with an elegant case-equivalent using dictionaries.
- Download
(.zip; 176k)
- The Acrobat User - Electronic Mark-up and Review
- Passing a PDf document around for comment? This month we review the specialized tools Acrobat provides for this purpose and examine some of their less-known properties.
- PostScript Tech - Concatenating PostScript Files
- Combining several PostScript files into a single file is a perennial problem for many people. Turns out to be pretty easy, especially if you have a Level 2 printer.
- Download (.zip; 140k)
- The Acrobat User - Convert Web Sites to PDF With Web Capture
- Web Capture is an Acrobat Feature that allows you to convert a web page or an entire web site to a PDF file with images, artwork, and links intact.
- PostScript Tech - Programming Acrobat with pdfmark (Part 2)
- This article adds to the December article, showing you how to insert pdfmark calls into documents created with QuarkXpress, PageMaker, or any application that imports EPS files. When you convert those documents to PDF, they have bookmarks and links already in place!
- Download (.zip; 286k)
- The Acrobat User - Improving PDF Readability with Articles
- When converting a printed document to PDF, you can greatly improve the file’s readability by using an underused feature called Articles. Here we see how to create these.
- PostScript Tech - Programming Acrobat with pdfmark (Part 1)
- How to programatically create bookmarks, links, and a host of other items within a PostScript file. We introduce pdfmark and see how to use it within QuarkXpress and other software.
- (This issue was originally distributed as the AKI Journal.)
- Download (.zip; 288k)
- The Acrobat User - Making Searchable PDF Files with Acrobat Catalog
- Adobe Acrobat ships with a little-used utility that lets you make a searchable index of a Issue of PDF files. Here we see how to use this utility.
- PostScript Tech - A Taste of Smooth Shading
- This is one of PostScript LanguageLevel 3’s most splashy features: language-level support for gradients. We do some simple smooth shading programming by way of an introduction.
- (This issue was originally distributed as the AKI Journal.)
- Download (.zip; 116k)
