Using Adobe Acrobat to produe PDF files
Acrobat is an increasingly complex piece of software, but it still is based on three main functions:
1. the "Convert to Adobe PDF" function which you initiate from your Office application or other authoring package by clicking the Acrobat button on the toolbar or choosing the "Convert to Adobe PDF" command from the Adobe PDF menu
2. the "Print to Adobe PDF" which you initiate by choosing the "Print" command from the "File" menu and then choosing the Adobe PDF virtual printer
3. the Distiller program, which you will find in your Start menu: to use this, first create a PostScript file from your Office document and then use Distiller to convert the PostScript to PDF
Of these three procedures, it is widely recognised that the best and safest is the third, using Distiller to convert PostScript to PDF. Files created in this way are in our experience less likely to cause problems for the classroom printing system.
PostScript is a printer language; documents are translated into PostScript and the PostScript files are sent to the printer. To generate a PostScript file you use the "Print to File" option, which causes the PostScript commands to be recorded in a file rather than sent to the printer. In the following procedure the "printer" is the "Adobe PDF" virtual printer.
- Save your Word or PowerPoint document
- Choose the Print command from the File menu
- Select the Adobe PDF virtual printer from the list of printers
- Tick the "Print to file" option
- Click "Properties"
- Make sure that the "Don't send fonts to Adobe PDF" option is not ticked
- From the drop-down list select which PDF settings to use (see below)
- Click OK to close the Properties window
- Now click Print and it will give you a file with the suffix .PRN
Once you have printed to file, launch Distiller. In the Distiller window is a drop-down list of PDF Settings. Choose the PDF settings to use for this conversion. Then open up the PostScript file and Distiller will convert it.
At both stages, creating the PostScript file, and Distilling it to PDF, you have to select which PDF settings to use. Which settings you use depends on how you intend the file to be used. For documents that you intend your students to print in the classrooms you should select the "Standard" setting at each stage. The settings listed in the drop-down list are pre-set combinations of options. When you select one of the listed options, a brief description is displayed indicating for what sort of document and output medium the settings are appropriate. You can edit the options in order to control the embedding of fonts, compression of images and the management of colour.
