Koala-T Assistant (MyKTA)

I have come across a great resource worth sharing.  It is located on the Office Arrow website and titled, The Effective Executive Assistant, A Guide to Creating Long-Term Career Success.

When I first started writing on my website to give tips, ideas, suggestions, and information for the professional, it was because I tried looking for information that related to the administrative field.  I couldn’t throw a stone and hit anything worthwhile to inspire me in my profession.  This blog has opened up a wide range of other websites to come into my radar and I am grateful to be able to share some of these with you.

The publication that I speak of here is a 61-page PDF.  To download the document, you must sign up to their website.  Don’t worry, the sign up process is simple and easy, very basic.  There are choices for membership, but I chose the Basic and the Basic is free, which gives you access to a lot of information and various templates, so you will find the information definitely worth the “free” price of signing up.

The document breaks down the various elements of the field as an Administrative Professional.  If you are looking at it as a career option, it will tell you what an assistant is and does, what core competencies or characteristics and skills it entails, and the types of assistants there are.  It will give you an idea of the type of setting and environment you would be working in, as well as covering the various myths associated with the position.  The final portion details great suggestions in creating a successful career as an Administrative Professional, concluding with an extensive resource listing and a recommended “Reading List.”

They really did a good job putting together a beautiful document that flows well and is chock full of information.  It really gets to the meat.  It is not necessarily a “How-To” reference, that would be more along the lines of an Office Handbook.  So if you are looking for a great resource for information on what it takes to be an Executive Assistant or what you should be doing to elevate what you are doing as an Executive Assistant, this material will give it to you.

So go over to their website, sign up, and check out a great website of information to keep you at the top of your game.  You can be just one of many assistants that are out there or you can be that “one in a million.”

This is a really easy tip and, surprising, many aren’t aware that you can add, delete, and manipulate your PDFs in Adobe.  You do have to have the full-blown version of Adobe Acrobat.  Adobe Reader will not do.

Inserting a PDF into a PDF

If you have an existing PDF and want to add additional information consisting of another PDF document, without having to send over seperate and multiple files in an email, here are your steps:

1. Open your first document, the one you want to add the information to.
2. In the menu bar, select Document.
3. In the drop down menu, select Insert Pages…
4. A file directory will appear.  Locate and select the PDF file you want to insert.
5. An Insert Pages prompt will display.
   1. First choose the location.  Your choices in the drop down menu will be Before or After.
   2. Then select the Page you want it to start.  The radio buttons are First, Last, and Page __ of ## (you type in the page location in the box.  It will look like this:

When you say OK, remember that the beginning of the document will be placed “Before” or “After” the very first page of the existing document you are working in, the very last page, or within the document at a specific page location.  I usually select “Before” First (so it starts at the very beginning of the document), or “After” Last (so it is merely appended to the back end of the document, or “After” a specific page location (so it is placed in the middle of the document after a certain page).

If you want to see how the full document is laid out.  On the left side, there are six icons (four left-side top and two left-side bottom).  Right-click on the very first icon that looks like two pages and a vertical display of a thumbnail preview of your pages will appear.

Multiple Program Documents

If you are finding difficulty in getting different program information into one document (i.e., inserting Excel information into a Word document), just convert your documents into PDF and insert the pages with the tip I just explained.  I have worked with a lot of administrative staff that just hate being bothered with the hassle of manipulating different program information into one consolidated document.  This usually consists of Inserting an Object, or other techniques.

Manipulate Your PDF

You want to move your PDF pages into a different order.  This is really simple.  All you have to do is bring up your vertical thumbnail view I mentioned earlier, click-and-drag the page to its new location.  The vertical slider will move up and down till you get where you want to drop your page.

Deleting PDF Pages

The easiest way to do this is to just mouse-click on the thumbnail page or by pressing down on the the Ctrl button, you can select as many pages as you want.  Once you have made your selection, hit the Delete key.  You will be prompted if you are sure you want to delete the page(s).  Just click OK.  Super easy!

Extraction

Lets say you have a large PDF document that you want to save specific pages as another file.  Follow the same procedure as above to Insert Pages…, but instead select Extract Pages… Select the specific pages you want saved as a document, and don’t forget to select the radio button that says Extract Pages As Separate Files, and click OK.  It will look like this:

A “Browser For Folder” prompt will appear, select the directory location for the separated pages to be saved and click OK.  This process does not delete the pages from your existing document. It’s like saving a copy of those pages, and eliminating extraneous pages, to a separate file of only the information you want to dessiminate.  I hope that makes sense.

Anyway, there are a lot of things you can do with PDFs in Adobe Acrobat, but these are just a few really useful and easy tips for putting together, consolidating, manipulating, or refining a PDF document.

If you like this tip, please share and let your friends know where they can get some useful tips and information.  I enjoy getting your feedback and please let me know if you have a question about something that is driving you crazy and you really believe there has got to be an easier solution.  I’ll see what I can do.