82. Install Plug-Ins Before You Begin 81 About How Plug-Ins Work See Also 83 About Sources for Plug-Ins Unlike most software, the vast majority of Acrobat plug-ins are purchased via the Internet. Therefore, the process of installing a plug-in requires you to first locate, purchase, download, and extract plug-in software. If you are familiar with downloading and extracting software, you have a head start when it comes to installing Acrobat plug-ins. 1. | Select a Plug-In Navigate to a website and select the desired plug-in. Then select the appropriate operating system. If you are purchasing the plug-in, go through the online purchasing process. If you are downloading a free temporary trial plug-in, follow the instructions for accessing the trial plug-in. TIP | There are two different categories of plug-ins: certified and non-certified. Certified plug-ins are created by Adobe Systems and meet certain standards set by Adobe. Plug-ins from third party developers do not necessarily meet these same standards and so are non-certified plug-ins. By default, Acrobat will load both types of plug-ins. If you experience problems with Acrobat that you suspect might be due to third-party plug-ins, you can tell Acrobat to load only certified plug-ins. To do so, go to the Edit menu and select Preferences . In the Preferences dialog box, select Startup in the Categories list. In the Application Startup section, check the Use only certified plug-ins option. The Currently in Certified Mode: field displays Yes if only certified plug-ins are loaded into memory or No if you have certified and non-certified plug-ins loaded. The next time you restart Acrobat, only certified plug-ins are loaded. | | 2. | Install a Plug-In After you have saved the plug-in file to a folder on your hard drive, navigate to the folder that contains the plug-in file to install and select the file. Most plug-in files are compressed to a smaller file size for easier storage and faster file transfer. For Windows users, these files usually have a .zip extension. For Mac OS users, the most common file extension is .sit . Double-click the compressed files and follow the onscreen prompts to confirm extraction and select a destination. After the files have been extracted, locate and double-click the extracted file to start the installation of the plug-in. Follow the onscreen prompts to install the new plug-in. | 3. | View the Results After you have downloaded, extracted, and installed the plug-in, it is loaded into memory the next time you launch Acrobat. Before using the plug-in for the first time, though, you might need to configure it. Usually, this means setting the preferences for the plug-in. To set preferences for a plug-in, select the plug-in located under the Plug-Ins menu. The Plug-Ins menu lists all third-party Acrobat plug-ins installed on your hard drive. Depending on the plug-in, it might not always be available to use unless you have a document open in the active window. | If you are not sure what a plug-in does or where it came from, view the plug-in's information found under the Help menuselect About Third-Party Plug-Ins and select the plug-in. A dialog box appears with information on the plug-in, such as the copyright information and a website to visit for more information. TIP | To unzip zipped files, you need a file extractor. For Windows users, a free evaluation version of WinZip is available at http://www.winzip.com. Mac OS users can use the operating system's built-in decompression feature or can download StuffIt Expander from http://www.stuffit.com. | You can also view Acrobat plug-ins by going to the Help menu and selecting the About Adobe Plug-Ins command. The About Adobe Plug-Ins dialog box appears. On the left side of the dialog box is a list of all the Adobe plug-ins, and on the right side is the plug-in information. Select a plug-in to view the version, whether it is certified, the creation date, a description of what the plug-in does, and its dependencies. |