Adobe Acrobat Tutorial:

The advantage of using Adobe Acrobat to create an online, multimedia portfolio is that you can use programs that you already know how to use, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. to create the content. This makes it the most user friendly program available for creating content for the web.

The first step to creating an online portfolio using Acrobat is to set everything up in whatever program you feel comfortable using. Many people set up a Powerpoint slide for at least the main homepage. On this slide they type in the words that they want to use as links. The actual linking will be done in Acrobat.

It is not necessary to create all your content in the same program to put into Acrobat. You may use several different programs and them pull all the info together in Acrobat.

1. Some quick tips that will make the documents work better in Acrobat
   
   1. Always make sure everything is exactly the way you want it to look when it is finished. You will not be able to change it much once it is in Acrobat.
      
   2. If you want the links to look like buttons or have the blue/underlined look of typical links you must accomplish this before you bring them into Acrobat by changing the color and underlining it.
      
   3. It is a good idea to change the page setup to be landscape and design your content accordingly. It will just look better on a screen in that format.
      
   4. Put any graphics in your document before you bring them in. You can add sound and video after it’s already in Acrobat.
      
      
2. Once you have collected and created all your information in another program you are ready to start using Acrobat. You follow the following procedure regardless of the application you used to create your document.
   
   1. First find a computer that has both the program you are using and Adobe Acrobat.
      
   2. Open the document or slide show or whatever you want to convert to PDF.
      
   3. Then go FILE...PAGE SETUP and make sure that the orientation is right, either portrait or landscape. Remember that landscape will usually look better on a computer screen.
      
   4. WINDOWS:
      
      1. Choose FILE...PRINT. On the drop-down menu called “PRINTER” choose Acrobat Writer or Acrobat Distiller (distiller is used with documents that have a lot of color or graphics).
         
      2. Click on the “PRINT” button.
         
      3. The PDF Writer window will appear click “OK” and you will be asked to name the file and where to save it. HINT: Make sure your name has a .PDF on the end of it.
         
      4. You’re finished!
         
         
         
   5. MAC:
      
      1. Hold down the “control” key on the keyboard and choose FILE...PRINT.
         
      2. The PDF Writer window will appear click “OK” and you will be asked to name the file and where to save it.
         
         HINT: Make sure your name has a .PDF on the end of it.
         
         
      3. You’re finished!
         
         
3. Once you have made PDF copies of all of the documents you want to use in your electronic portfolio you are ready to make it interactive.
   
   1. Open Adobe Acrobat (this is not to be confused with Acrobat Reader which most computers have and you are not able to edit with).
      
   2. Open your “homepage”.
      
      1. This is the page that you’ve created to be the navigational page for your portfolio.
         
   3. Now you want to make your “links” hot so that they will open the corresponding page .
      
      1. First click on the “link” tool on the toolbar that is located to the left of the window.
         
      2. Draw a box around the text or graphic that you wish to turn into a link. A dialog box will appear that is called “Create Link”.
         
         This is where you will control the properties of the link.
         
         1. The first part is the “Type:” Here you can choose whether you want a visible box around your link or an invisible box.
            
         2. If you choose visible you can also choose what the box surrounding your link will look like by changing the Highlight, Color, Width, and Style. You can play with these to achieve the perfect button for your link
            
         3. Next you will control what happens when you click the button. To do this you start with the “Type:” control within the “Action” subsection. The default is “Go to View”
            
            This is where you control what action will happen when you click the button. If you want the link to play a movie you choose “Movie”, play a sound choose “Sound” etc. If you want to open another PDF document you choose “Open File”.
            
         4. Now you will be asked to select the file to open. You will notice that the bottom part of the Action section has now changed to look like this:
            
            
         5. Now you want to push the “Select File...” button and navigate to the file you wish to open.
            
            HINT: It is always a good idea to create a folder to house all of you PDF files. If the files are not in the same folder the computer will have trouble finding the file later.
            
            
         6. You are finished with the link so now you need to test it. Click on the “Hand” in the left toolbar and now click on the link. It should open the file you specified.
            
   4. There is one other way to make links. This is by creating a “button” in Acrobat.
      
      1. You do not need an existing piece of text or graphic, Acrobat will create one for you.
         
      2. Click on the “Forms” tool on the left toolbar.
         
      3. Now draw a box on the document, the approximate size and location that you want the button to appear.
         
      4. You will now get the “Field Properties” dialog box.
         
         
      5. The first thing you want to do is name your button. This is not the name that appears on the button so you can name it something simple.
         
      6. Click on the Type: drop-down menu. The default is “Text”
         You now have all these options. For this tutorial we are keeping it simple so we’ll choose “Button”
         
      7. The “Field Properties” dialog box will now change. You have 3 tabs that you can make changes with:
         
         
         
         
         1. The first of these tabs, “Appearance”, will control what the button looks like. Most of these are pretty self-explanatory. You should play with them to obtain the desired look.
            
         2. The second tab is “Options”. This is where you type in the text that you want to appear on the button. You type it in the box that is labeled Text:
            
            
         3. The third tab is “Actions” and this is where you control what the button does.
            
            
            1. The first step of this part is to click on the “Add” button. You will now get a new dialog box
               
            2. Click on “None” and you will get the same choices that you got earlier while using the “Link” button
               
               
            3. Once again choose “Open File” and navigate to the file you wish to open and click “OK”.
               
         4. You’re now finished setting the button properties so click “OK”
            
         5. You are finished with the link so now you need to test it. Click on the “Hand” in the left toolbar and now click on the link. It should open the file you specified.
            
            
   5. HINT: If at any time you want to change the properties of a button, the look, action, etc., you need to choose the tool from the left toolbar and then double-click on the thing you’d like to change. This will bring up the dialog box where you’ll be able to change the properties of the object.
      
      

This is just a quick tutorial of Adobe Acrobat which explains how to do the most common activities. Adobe Acrobat can support many other forms of multimedia, such as sound, video, Quicktime VR, etc. If you have any questions regarding anything in this handout or anything not covered in the handout please contact me:

Christi Boggs
Director of Technology
College of Education
766-3572
cboggs@uwyo.edu

©Christi Boggs 2002