| Although there are many similarities between FlashPaper and PDF formatsboth are designed to display documents faithful to their original formatthey're also quite different. PDF has a number of document review and security features that FlashPaper doesn't have. Likewise, FlashPaper is much more Web-centric with its almost instantaneous loading and ability to be embedded in the page. The PDF format has also been around much longer than that of FlashPaper, and many organizations use it a great deal. One unexpected advantage of FlashPaper 2 in Windows is the capability to save a converted file in PDF format. Although the Adobe Reader software is in fairly widespread use, the capability to create PDFs is less universal. Through FlashPaper, PDF documents can be created with or without an outline. In addition, a variety of security options can be imposed. For example, the document can selectively be password-protected against printing while allowing it to be read. Note Macintosh OS X users can already save any file as a PDF, so the rest of this lesson is for Windows users only.
In this procedure, you'll create a new PDF version of the Financial Report document previously converted to FlashPaper, and add a link to it through Contribute. 1. | In Word, reopen the Financial Report.doc file located in the report folder. From the FlashPaper menu, choose Options.
Before initiating the conversion process, you need to set the options you want to apply. There's no way to apply the options after the file has been created.
| 2. | When the Conversion Options dialog box appears, from the General tab, select Include outline and deselect View results. Switch to the PDF Security tab and check the "Require password to open the document" option (make sure that the "Restrict permitted actions on open documents" option is deselected). After the password field is enabled, enter designdeploy as the password. Click OK when you're done.
A fair number of security variations is possible. If desired, you can even instigate two-level password protection: The first password keeps the document from being opened; the second prevents specific features, such as printing, from being enabled. If you do use dual passwords, they must be different from each other.
| 3. | From the menu, choose FlashPaper > Convert to PDF. When the Save As PDF dialog box opens, browse to the local site root and open the report folder. Enter financial_report.pdf in the File name field and click Save.
The FlashPaper progress indicator appearswhen it's done, the conversion to PDF is complete and the file is saved. Now you're ready to return to the Financial Report page and add a link to the new PDF file.
| 4. | In Contribute, select the Financial Report draft from the Pages panel to reopen it for editing. Place your cursor at the bottom of the Flash document between it and the copyright line. Choose Link > File on My Computer. In the Insert Link dialog box, enter View PDF version in the Link text field. Select Browse and navigate to the financial_report.pdf file just saved; click Select if necessary. Click OK to close the Insert Link dialog box. Contribute reminds you that you'll need make any changes to the linked document on the Web site; click OK. When returned to Contribute Edit mode, click Publish.
If you have Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat installed, you can test the new link right in Contribute's built-in browser.
| 5. | After the page has been published, scroll to the bottom of the page and select the link. In a moment, the PDF controls will finish loading and display the Password dialog box before displaying the page. Enter the password designdeploy in the provided field and click OK to view the page.
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When Contribute publishes the page, it transfers a copy of the PDF file to the site andas established in the File Placement category of the Role Settings dialog boxplaces it in the media/pdfs folder. |
