To use PDF files as efficiently as possible, it's important to know that, from a practical point of view, there are three different types of PDF files:

·         text-based files

·         image-based files

·         searchable image-based files

In text-based PDF files, the text is "real" text and you can copy and paste text from the file (unless it's restricted by the file's security settings) and search for text in the file. Converting these types of files to a fully editable (and translatable) format, such as a Word file, is less problematic than with image-based files, though not necessarily simple.

Image-based files, on the other hand, do not allow copying or searching because what appears to be text is actually part of an image. A scanned or faxed document that has been saved as a PDF file is an example of an image-based file. To convert these types of files to an editable file format one needs to use an OCR (optical character recognition) program, and the result depends on the clarity of the image.

The third type, the searchable image-based file, is kind of a hybrid between the two other types. It's an image file that is searchable, i.e., you can search text even though it's an image. A searchable image-based file can be created from an image-based file using the Recognize Text Using OCR function in Adobe Acrobat (not available in the Reader version). As with any OCR program, the results depend on the clarity of the text in the image. If you have a hard time reading the text, don't think that the program can read it any better. You can also copy and paste text from a searchable image file, but, again, the resulting text depends on how accurately the OCR program recognized the text.

Adobe Reader is probably already in almost everyone's computer. It allows you to view and search PDF files and also comment on files that have been enabled for commenting.

In addition to the free Reader version, the Adobe Acrobat product family also includes various forms of paid versions (among them Adobe Acrobat Standard and Adobe Acrobat Pro). You should make sure to review the additional features that these paid versions offer, such as enhanced editing, commenting, PDF file creation, file conversion, security settings, etc. You can find a comparison chart of the unpaid and paid versions right here. The main difference between the paid Standard and Pro editions from the translator's perspective is the helpful comparison of different PDFs and the ability to enable comment features for the free Reader (these features are available in the Pro version only).

In addition to the Adobe Acrobat products, there are many more-or-less comparable and often less expensive programs that allow you to do many of the same things, including Solid PDF Tools, DocuCom PDF Gold, Pdf995Suite, and many, many others. However, if you are considering any of these other tools, make sure that the tool is fully compatible with all current Acrobat features. You don't want to spend all that money to find out later that you need Adobe Acrobat after all.

One of the most common tasks we need to do with PDF files is inserting comments as part of a document review (proofreading) cycle. Adobe Acrobat offers several tools for this to make commenting easy and clear.

It's important for the project manager to know whether the translator has a free or paid version so that the commenting features can be enabled (you enable this by selecting Advanced> Extend Features in Adobe Reader in the Pro version).

The Comment & Markup tools can be accessed in several different ways, either through the Tools menu (Tools> Comment & Markup) or the Comment & Markup toolbar (Tools> Customize Toolbars / View> Toolbars> Comment & Markup). Most of you are familiar with the yellow Sticky Note tool and tend to use that for everything. However, in most cases it would be much more efficient and clearer to use some of the other tools. The Text Edits tool in particular is very good for indicating text corrections, additions, and deletions. Note that none of these tools actually changes the text in the file -- they only indicate what needs to be changed. The actual changes will then be made to the original file, for example, by a DTP person. Other Comment & Markup tools that are often useful in a review process include Highlight Text, Callout, Arrow, Rectangle, etc. They help to pinpoint the location where the associated comment is supposed to apply.

Sometimes it can be difficult to manage all the comments in a file, particularly if the file is long or includes a lot of comments. Adobe Acrobat offers several tools to help with organizing and managing comments. Clicking the Show button in the Comment & Markup toolbar opens a menu that includes several options that allow you to show or hide all comments (Show/Hide Comments) or only certain comments based on comment type, reviewer, or comment status.

In addition, you can also open or minimize all pop-ups at once by selecting Open/Minimize All Pop-Ups. Individual pop-ups can also be opened simply by double-clicking their place holder in the file. You can also access several comment-specific features by right-clicking a comment. One of these options is Reply, which allows you to reply to the comment. This ensures that the reply gets inserted within the comment and will stay with it. If you reply using a separate comment, there's always a risk that the comments might get separated, preventing other readers from knowing which replies and comments are supposed to match.

Adobe Acrobat offers two different ways to search for text in a document. Both methods are also available in the Reader version. Find looks for text within the current document (Tools> Find or Ctrl+F). This opens the Find toolbar, if it's not open already, and allows you to type the search string to the text box in the toolbar. Clicking the down arrow next to the text box opens a menu with some additional find options. After searching the string for the first time, the Find Previous (left) and Find Next (right) arrows appear next to the text box.

The Search function (Edit> Search or Ctrl+Shift+F) is a more powerful way to search text because it can search one or more files at once and displays all hits in a separate Search window. It also offers several search options for fine-tuning the search. Many of them can be accessed through the Advanced Search Options link at the bottom of the Search window.

The Pro version offers an additional search feature that's called indexing. With it you can index hundreds of files for very quick searching. Select Advanced> Document Processing> Full Text Index with Catalog> New Index, name the index, select directories to be included, click Build, and then specify a location for the index file. Then use the resulting PDX index file for searching. It's much faster and less draining on your computer resources than the normal search if you have a large amount of data.

In general, I try to avoid printing paper copies as much as possible. Using Adobe Acrobat, PDF files and electronic forms or e-faxes often makes this possible and easy. Unfortunately, for some users this works well until it's time to sign the document. At that point they feel forced to print out the document and look for a pen. However, it is also often possible to insert an electronic signature into the document. This can be done in two different ways. The simple and less secure method is to insert a scanned signature (for example, a JPG file) into the document by copying and pasting it via the clipboard. It gets inserted as a "stamp," and you can easily resize and relocate it by dragging it to fit the space available. Note, however, that anyone can copy your signature as an image from the PDF file and reuse it (unless you set the security settings to restrict copying). A much more secure method is to use a digital ID.

Creating a digital ID is a simple process and needs to be done only once. After that, using it is very simple. To create a digital ID, select Advanced> Security Settings> Digital IDs> Add ID> A new digital ID I want to create now> Next> New PKCS#12 digital ID file> Next. Fill the information fields as needed and click Next. Select a location for the ID file and define a password. Click Finish to return to the Security Settings dialog and click Close. That's it.

You can create several types of digital IDs and even include an image, such as a logo or your handwritten signature.

When you want to sign a PDF document, select Advanced> Sign & Certify> Place Signature. Drag a rectangle where you want to place the signature. Choose a digital ID from your list of available IDs, type the password, choose an appearance, and click Sign.

This feature is not available with the free Reader, unless it was activated for the specific file by the Pro version.

Converting PDF files is probably the most common problem that translators encounter with PDF files when translating using a translation environment tool. Most translation environment tools can't process PDF files, and even those that can (such as Trados Studio, Wordfast Pro, memoQ, Alchemy Publisher, and Fluency) often don't do it well enough (see the last newsletter).

A good conversion program converts a PDF file to a Word file with flowing text but conserves formatting (bold, italics, paragraphs, tables, etc.) without creating text boxes. If the PDF file is an image-based file (such as a scanned or faxed document), the program also needs to be able to convert the image to text accurately.

Adobe Reader offers only two possible conversion methods: text can be copied and pasted using the clipboard or the file can be saved as a text file (File> Save as Text). With both methods, each line ends with a hard return (paragraph mark), so they are practical only for a small amount of text.

Some tips for selecting text in Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat: You can select a whole page by clicking it four times. When selecting all (Ctrl+A), "all" can either be a whole page or a whole document depending on the Page Display setting. If the setting is Single Page (View> Page Display> Single Page), only the current page will be selected. If any other page display setting is selected, the whole document will be selected. When copying text, sometimes, depending on the file, there might also be an option to copy with or without formatting (right-click menu).

The Standard and Pro versions of Adobe Acrobat offer some additional conversion methods. You can select File> Export or File> Save As, which allows saving the file directly in various file formats (such as Word, Excel, HTML, XML, etc.).

Once you select text within a file, there are also a number of right-click menu options available: Copy, Copy As Table, Save As Table, and Open Table in Spreadsheet. These table options can be quite handy when trying to convert text into a table format (great for creating glossaries). However, tables can be very tricky to convert with any of the above methods. For example, it is possible to convert a table using the Save As Table or Open Table in Spreadsheet options, but they usually convert only one page at a time even if I select several pages of the table. The conversion settings can be accessed through Edit> Preferences> Convert From PDF.

I have covered the lighter versions (PDF Transformer by ABBYY and PDF Converter by Nuance) numerous times, and these can be both an affordable and suitable option for converting PDFs. However, if your bread and butter consists of translating PDF files and you're looking for more flexibility than the Transformer/Converter programs can offer, you might want to have a look at their (much) more expensive bigger siblings, i.e., FineReader by ABBYY and OmniPage by Nuance.

Here are some examples of what FineReader can do. FineReader is a full-scale OCR program that does much more than just convert and create PDF files. It can be used to convert scanned documents and several types of image files to editable format. It has several more options and features compared to PDF Transformer, but it's still quite easy to use.

FineReader offers several general and file-specific options for perfecting the conversion process and the output (Tools> Options). Many of the tasks can be customized and automated so that a complete conversion can be done with just a couple of clicks (Tools> Automation Manager). When converting PDF files to editable file formats, it's important to select the Document Format Saving Mode that produces the most suitable output. The availability of the four modes depends on the output file format. When converting to Word (DOC, DOCX, RTF) format, all four modes are available:

• Exact copy: Formatting corresponds to that of the original, but the ability to change the text and format of the output document is very limited. Text is often placed in text boxes.
• Editable copy: Formatting may differ slightly from that of the original, but the document is easy to edit.
• Formatted text: Fonts, font sizes, and paragraphs are retained, but not the exact spacing or locations of the objects on the page.
• Plain text: No text formatting is retained.

In addition, you have options to retain or exclude pictures and footers/headers. You can change all these settings on the fly and see the results immediately in the Text window without having to save the output document first.

The FineReader main window consists of four panes, various toolbars, and the menu.

• The Page pane displays the pages of the current document.
• The Image pane displays an image of the current page and allows editing of image areas, changing area types (text, table, or picture), and text properties.
• In the Text pane, you can view the recognized text, check spelling, and format and edit the recognized text.
• In the Zoom pane you can see an enlarged image of the line or image area currently being edited.

While the Image pane displays the general page view, the Zoom pane provides an easy way to view the image in greater detail, adjust the area type and position, or compare uncertain characters with the enlarged image. Overall, it gives you more flexibility than the Transformer, but then you also have to pay significantly more.

PDF files can also be password-protected (the password protection can only be applied in Adobe Acrobat Standard or Pro). There are two types of password protection available. One requires a password to open the file and the other one restricts copying, editing, and printing of the file. These two protection types require separate passwords and can be used independently of one another. You can view a document's security settings by selecting File> Properties> Security. The lower half of the tab consists of a Document Restrictions Summary showing what's allowed and what's not. You can define security settings (if allowed) by selecting Password Security from the Security Method pull-down menu or selecting Change Settings if the file already has security settings. This opens the Password Security Settings dialog where you can select the desired encryption level, set passwords, and choose which actions will be restricted.

Sometimes you might end up getting a password-protected PDF file from a client. If the client is unable to provide you with the password, you might need to use a tool that can unprotect PDF files. There are several tools available that you can easily find by googling/binging for "unprotect PDF." (And after you crack that PDF, you'll experience that slightly uneasy and yet elated feeling of almost having done something illegal. Priceless!)

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