Importing and Exporting PDF Documents and Contents


There is a wide variety of tools and methods for moving contents, including text and graphic components , into and out of PDF documents. Following are some of the more useful tools and techniques.

Changing the Format of PDF Documents

Because a PDF document is a form of PostScript, you can change it into a wide variety of file formats for use in various circumstances and by various applications.

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File Formats

The concept of file formats is easily understood if you divide any document into two parts : its contents and the container that holds those contents. Contents are document elements such as text and graphics. File formats are the container into which you place your document contents.

You employ different file formats (containers) for different uses. A PDF is one file format, and a PostScript file format is another. Both may have essentially the same content stored in different containers bound for different uses. A PDF document can be saved out as an integrated text and graphic document, such as another PDF, EPS, HTML, or XML; as a text-based file, such as a Word DOC; or as a graphics file, such as TIFF or one of the JPEGs, depending upon how you might want to reuse the content of your PDF.

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One of the easiest ways to change a PDF s file format is to use the Save As function in Acrobat. Here s how:

  1. Open the PDF whose file format you would like to change.

  2. Select File > Save As. The Save As window will appear (Figure 13.10).

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    Figure 13.10: The Save As dialog

  3. Click the Format menu and select a file format. Here I have selected Encapsulated PostScript (EPS).

  4. After you have selected the file format, be sure to click the Settings button so that you can configure your new format to match your needs for this new file. Each file format will have its own unique Save As Settings dialog, like the one in Figure 13.11 for EPS format. (Note here that the EPS Save As Settings dialog is similar to the Advanced Print Setup one we used in previous sections.)

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    Figure 13.11: Settings for saving as an EPS file

    Note  

    Acrobat will automatically add the appropriate three-character extension onto your new file (in this case it is .eps ). You can choose to either hide or show this extension. I recommend as a matter of course that you show it, so that the document s format can be easily recognized at a glance without having to open the document.

  5. When you are through configuring your file format settings, click the OK button in the Save As Settings dialog; then click the Save button in the Save As dialog to create your new file.

Exporting or Saving Contents

Text can be easily exported from a PDF document in various ways. You can export all the text in your PDF, export all the images at once, or copy and paste selected content.

Exporting All Text or All Images

To export all the text in your PDF file, choose File > Save As and select one of the many text file formats available there (see the preceding section).

Instead of accessing one image at a time, you may need to export all images from a PDF document with the same format and with the same settings. To do so, open the document from which you would like to export all of the images and choose Advanced > Export All Images. Configure the next dialog (Figure 13.12) as follows :

  1. Select a file Format for the images.

  2. Click the Settings button, assign the settings for the format you chose (as described in the preceding section), and then click OK to return to the Export All Images dialog.

  3. Establish a base name for your images using the Save As field. Acrobat will create a sequence of images using this base name .

  4. Leave Hide Extension unchecked so that the three-character file extension (in this case .jpg ) will be visible at the end of all the exported graphics filenames.

  5. Click the Save button to complete the process.

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Figure 13.12: Export All Images As dialog

Pasting Selected Text

It s easy to copy and paste selected portions of the text in a PDF document. Here s how:

  1. Expand the Selection toolbar to show all three selection tools (Text, Table, and Image; Figure 13.13).

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    Figure 13.13: Showing the Selection toolbar

  2. Click the Select Text tool .

  3. Click and drag over the text you want to select.

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  4. Copy this selected copy by doing one of the following:

    • Choose Edit > Copy.

    • Press /Ctrl+C.

    • Control+click/right-click the selected text to activate the context menu (my choice here) and choose Copy To Clipboard.

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  5. Move to the application and document into which you would like to insert your selected and copied text, and paste it.

Pasting an Image

To copy and paste a single image:

  1. Expand the Selection toolbar to show the selection tools (Text, Table, and Image).

  2. Click the Select Image tool .

  3. Click the image you want to select. A negative view of the image will appear, indicating that it is selected.

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  4. Copy this selected image by doing one of the following:

    • Choose Edit > Copy.

    • Press /Ctrl+C.

    • Control+click/right-click the selected text to activate the context menu (my choice here) and choose Save Image As.

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  5. Select a location and a file format for your image in the Save Image As window.

Note  

Chapter 12, Editing PDFs, and the sections later in this chapter for more information on opening images in Photoshop.

Exporting or Pasting a Table

You can export a table, open it in another application, or copy and paste it:

  1. Expand the Selection toolbar to show the selection tools (Text, Table, and Image).

  2. Click the Select Table tool .

  3. Click and drag over the table you want to select. A bounding box will appear around the table, indicating that it is selected. You can resize this box to make sure the entire table is selected.

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  4. Copy this selected table by doing one of the following:

    • Choose Edit > Copy.

    • Press /Ctrl+C.

    • Control+click/right-click the selected text to activate the context menu (my choice here) and choose one of the copy or export options: Copy Selected Table, Save Selected Table As, or Open Table In Spreadsheet.

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      Note  

      An icon for the preferred spreadsheet application (Excel here) will appear next to the Open Table In Spreadsheet menu selection.

  5. If you chose Save Selected Table As, select a location and a file format for your image in the Acrobat Save As dialog. If you chose Copy Selected Table, move to the application and document into which you would like to insert your selected and copied table, and paste it.

Using Snapshots of PDF Contents

If you ever need to show just a portion of a PDF document page, Acrobat provides a screen capture tool just for this purpose, and it s easy to use. Here s how:

  1. Zoom in on the portion of the PDF document page you would like to capture.

  2. Select the Snapshot tool (just to the right of the selection tools).

  3. Make a snapshot selection in either of two ways:

    • Click just once on the active PDF document window, and the entire visible area of the PDF document panel will be captured. (This is why I had you zoom in to just the area you wanted to capture.)

    • Click and drag across the area you would like to capture (as I ve done in Figure 13.14), and a thin, dashed selection rectangle will be drawn around your snapshot area.

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    Figure 13.14: The snapshot area

    In both cases, a message will appear informing you that the selected area has been copied to the Clipboard. (You can disable this message by clicking the Do Not Show This Message Again check box.)

  4. You can now paste this image into any PDF document by clicking the Paste Clipboard Image icon and then doing one of the following:

    • Click anywhere on a PDF document page to have the screen shot pasted at 100 percent.

    • Click and drag to define the size of the pasted image (usually the best option).

    In either case, you can resize the pasted image by dragging the black square control points on the edges of the pasted image.

You can also paste a Snapshot image from the Clipboard into any application ” such as Photoshop or a page layout program s graphic box ”that will accept a graphic image

Note  

If you paste this screen capture into a page layout document, it will embed rather than link this image. So if you need to use only linked images, copy this screen grab into Photoshop first, save the image out of Photoshop, and then place that image as a linked image into your page layout document. When copying a PDF snapshot into Photoshop, simply select File > New (the new image will have the same dimensions as the snapshot) and then paste the snapshot into the new image (which will paste the snapshot into a new layer). Finish up by flattening the image.




Acrobat 6 and PDF Solutions
Acrobat 6 and PDF Solutions
ISBN: 0782142737
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 102

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