Administrative Sparkle Blog

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.

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