UH Manoa Library
Internet Training - Phase IV

Contents

Part Two: Viewing PDF Files with Adobe Acrobat Reader


Introduction

Adobe Acrobat Reader software allows you to read PDF files on the Web. PDF files are files that were originally created in another application, like Word or Pagemaker, and then converted into Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). Converting them to PDF format allows them to appear on the Web exactly the same as the original without the need to convert them to HTML.

When you click on a link to a PDF file, a copy of the file is transfered to your PC's hard drive. If Acrobat Reader is installed on the hard drive, the file opens in a separate Acrobat Reader window. Or, if Acrobat Reader is installed as a browser plug-in, the PDF file opens within the browser window itself. In this training, PDF files will open in a separate Acrobat Reader window.

PDF files are saved to the hard drive with file names ending in ".pdf". Such files can be renamed. Renaming makes it easier to find them later if you want to read them again. They can be opened in the Acrobat Reader application independently of any browser.

The Acrobat Reader Window

The Acrobat Reader window has icons across the top of the window, icons at the bottom of the window, scroll bars for vertical and horizontal scrolling and menus. An Appendix at the bottom of this page lists the major icons and features of Acrobat Reader. You will use these in the exercise that follows.

EXERCISES

Start at the University of Hawai'i home page, UHINFO.
Click on the link to Information and Technology Services.
Click on the link to ITS Guide to Services (PDF, 201KB).

At this point, a copy of the file will be downloaded to your computer. You may see a file transfer status window followed by the opening of the Acrobat Reader software. Shortly thereafter, the document, ITS Guide to Services will appear in an Acrobat window. On the classroom Macintosh, the icon for the file appears on the desktop. The file name is itsguide.pdf.

Now you are ready to use the Acrobat Reader icons to view the document.

A. Scrolling

The Hand Tool is normally the active tool when you open a PDF document in Acrobat Reader. If its icon is not highlighted, click once on the Hand icon to select it.

A1. Click and hold the mouse button and drag the mouse to see different parts of the page.

The current view of the page is called the "Single Page" layout. You move the Hand Tool to view different parts of a single page.

If you want to see more than one page at a time...

A2. Open the View menu and note the three page layout options near the bottom of the menu: Single Page, Continuous and Continuous - Facing Pages.

A3. Select the "Continuous" command. This will display one page after another vertically in the Acrobat window.

A4. Use the Hand Tool to move the page vertically. Position the hand cursor near the bottom of the window and click/drag in an upward motion. You will see that a second page follows the first as you move the Hand Tool up the screen.

A5. Return to the View menu and select Continuous - Facing Pages.

A6. Use the Hand Tool to move the page horizontally. Position the hand cursor near the right side of the window and click/drag toward the left. You will see that you can view pages side by side (what is called "facing pages" in publishing terminology).

Note that another way to switch the page layout between Single Page, Continuous and Continous - Facing Pages is to use the Page Layout icon at the bottom of the Acrobat Window.

A7. Click and hold the mouse button down on top of the Page Layout icon at the bottom of the Acrobat window. Move the arrow cursor up to select "Single Page." Note that the layout of the pages changes back to the single page at a time view.

You can also click in the scroll bars to see different parts of the page.

A8. Click the vertical scroll bar down and up arrows to view parts of the page. Note that if you click far enough, you move on to the next (or previous) page. Scroll in the opposite direction to return to page 1 if you need to.

B. Changing Page Views

There are three basic views of a PDF document: (a) the page only, (b) the page with bookmarks and (c) the page with thumbnail images of each page. In many cases, the basic page view is the most appropriate. The page you are viewing should be in page only view. The Page Only icon should be highlighted. If it isn't, click on the Page icon to see the page only view.

B1. Click the Bookmarks and Page icon to see if there are any bookmarks. There are no bookmarks so the left side of the window is blank.

B2. Click the Thumbnails and Page icon to see thumbnail images of each page that you can click to view another page quickly.

B3. Click the thumbnail of page 4 to view that page.

B4. Notice that the Hand Tool remains selected as you change the page view. Click and drag with the hand tool in order to see all of the page.

If you want to change the amount of space occupied by the thumbnails or bookmarks, you can use an icon at the bottom of the Acrobat window to do so.

B5. Click and drag the cursor over the Resize Split Window icon at the bottom, left side of the Acrobat window. The cursor changes to a double bar with right/left arrows. Make the thumbnail window wider. To do this, click and hold the mouse button over the icon, drag the mouse to the right and let go.

C. Changing the Magnification Size of a Page

C1. Click the Zoom In icon (a magnifying glass with a plus sign) and position it over the page. Click once to enlarge the page. Click it repeatedly to enlarge it to its maximum size.

C2. Open the Tools Menu and select the Zoom Out command (magnifying glass with a minus sign). Click on the page to reduce it.

D. Copying Text on a Page

When the Hand tool or Zoom tool is selected, text of the page cannot be selected. In order to select text, you must first activate the Text Tool.

D1. Click the Text icon and place it over text on the page. The cursor changes to an I-beam shape.

D2. Display page 1 of the ITS Guide to Services document.

D3. Click and drag the I-beam cursor to select the first paragraph of text on the page. You may find it easier to do this by enlarging the text first with the Zoom Tool.

D4. With the text selected (highlighted), select the Copy command from the Edit menu. You are now ready to paste this text into a word processing or other type of document. (We won't actually do a paste in this exercise.)

E. Moving from Page to Page in a Document

Four icons allow you to move forward and backward through a PDF document:

Display the first page.

Display the previous page.

Display the next page.

Display the last page.

E1. Click the Next Page icon to go to page 5 of the document.

E2. Click the Previous Page icon to go to page 4.

E3. Click the Last Page icon to go to the end of the document.

E4. Click the First Page icon to go to page 1.

You can also click a page thumbnail when thumbnail images of pages are displayed, as you did in exercise 4 above.

Another way to move to a particular page quickly is to use the Go to Page icon at the bottom of the Acrobat window.

E5. Click on the Go to Page icon. Type "10" in the Go to Page dialog box. Then, click OK. What is the title of the document section that begins on page 10?

F. Switching Between Two Magnification Views of the Page

Two icons allow you to switch between different zoom views of a document.

When you used the Zoom In and Zoom Out icons earlier, you viewed the document in different magnifications. Acrobat remembers the last two magnifications you used.

F1. Click the Previous View icon to change to the magnification used before the current one.

F2. Click the Next View icon to return to the magnification that was current a moment ago.

F3. Change the zoom magnification of the page by using a tool you used earlier. Then, use the two icons just described to switch between the two most recent magnifications.

G. Switching Between Fit in Window Views of the Page

Three icons allow you to change how the page fits inside the Acrobat Window. These are what might be called standard sizes: actual size (100%), fit in window and fit width in window.

G1. Click the Actual Size icon to view the page at 100% size. This is the actual size (original size) of the document pages. If you make the window smaller or larger, the size of the text and graphics on the page remain the same.

G2. Click the Full Page icon to view the entire page inside the Acrobat window. If you make the window smaller or larger, the page shrinks or expands to fill the available space.

G3. Change the size of the Acrobat window by clicking and dragging from the bottom right corner of the window. Notice how the size of the page changes inside the window.

G4. Click the Full Width icon to view the full width of the page inside the Acrobat window. Again, the size of the page changes if you make the Acrobat window larger or smaller.

H. Switching between Zoom Magnification and Fit in Window Views

The Zoom icon at the bottom of the Acrobat window allows you to quickly select a zoom magnification view from 25% to 800% or a fit in window view.

H1. Click and hold the mouse button down over the Zoom icon. A box of magnifications will appear. Move the mouse into the box on top of "150%" and release the mouse button. The view will change, unless you were already viewing at 150% size.

H2.Do this again, but this time select "Fit Page."

I. Finding Text on the Page

Acrobat Reader allows you to search for words on the page with the Find icon.

I1.Click the Find icon to display the Find Dialog Box. Type the word "internet" and click the Find button. Acrobat highlights the first occurrence of the word on the page you are viewing.

I2. Click the Find icon again. Click the Find Again button. Acrobat finds the next occurrence of the word.

J. Using the Select Graphic Command (Tools Menu)

The Acrobat Reader menus provide alternative ways to select tools and commands. The View and Tools menus are the most useful. The Edit menu contains the standard Copy and Paste commands used when working with selected text. Many of the commands in the View and Tools menus are duplicated by the icons you have used in this exercise.

One menu command that is not duplicated by an icon is the Select Graphics command on the Tools menu.

This command allows you to copy a graphic element and paste it into another document, such as a word processing document. This tool was used to copy the icons seen on this page.

J1. Open the Tools menu and select the Select Graphics command.

J2. Display page 1 of the document. Use one of the icons at the top of the Acrobat window to do this.

J3.Display page 1 at 100% magnification. Use the Zoom icon at the bottom of the Acrobat window to do this.

J4. Find the University of Hawai'i logo at the top right corner of page 1. This is the round UH seal with the world map in it. Position the mouse at the top, left corner of the UH seal graphic. Click/drag the mouse to draw a dotted line around the graphic and release the mouse button.

J5. Open the Edit menu and select the Copy command.

You are now ready to paste this graphic into a word processing or graphics document. (We won't actually do a paste in this exercise.)

Help Menu

The menus also contain other commands that will not be covered in this training. Those commands are not essential for viewing documents with Acrobat Reader.

One menu you may want to use from time to time is the Help menu. On a Macintosh, the help information is found by clicking on the Question Mark (?) menu in the menubar. On a Windows PC, Help is one of the menus in the Acrobat Reader menubar.

Printing

After you've read or skimmed a PDF document in Acrobat Reader, you may want to print it. Acrobat creates a printout that is very close in appearance to the original document. One use of printing is to print out income tax forms so that you don't have to photocopy them from Government Documents or travel to a State or Federal tax office!

Sometimes a printer is not able to print a PDF document at 100% size. For example, when I printed a Hawaii State tax form this year, I had to print it at 95% size in order for the page to print inside the printer's printable page area. You can change the printing size by using the Page Setup command in the File menu.

When you are ready to print, issue the Print command from the File menu.

This concludes the introduction to using Adobe Acrobat Reader. An Appendix, below, lists the major tools and features if you wish to review them later.

Evaluation

Now, please complete the Evaluation Form for the Internet Training, Part 4 sessions. Thank you!

APPENDIX

Icons at the Top of the Window

Some versions or installations of Acrobat Reader may have more or fewer icons.

Display the page only.

Display bookmarks and the page.

Display thumbnails and the page.

Select the hand tool.

Select the zoom tool.

Select the text selection tool.

Display the first page.

Display the previous page.

Display the next page.

Display the last page.

Goes to the previous view (zoom size).

Returns to the next view (zoom size).

View the page at actual size (100% size).

View the full page inside Acrobat window.

View the full width of page inside Acrobat window.

Display the find dialog box.

Icons at the Bottom of the Window

Allows you to change the width of the bookmarks or thumbnails section of the window.

Allows you to specify the page number you wish to view.

Allows you to change the zoom size of the page inside the window.

Allows you to change how many pages appear inside the window (layout).

Menus

The Acrobat Reader menubar includes five menus: File, Edit, View, Tools, Window plus Help (appears differently on Macintosh and Windows machines).

Of these, the Edit, View and Tools menus are the most useful. Most of the commands in these menus repeat commands that are available through the icons at the top and bottom of the window.


This page was created by Wil Frost, University of Hawai'i at Manoa Library.
Last modified: May 20, 1997.