Acrobat -- Change Fields Check Style

Direct purchase using PayPal ($25 only per license)!
Using this handy tool you can easily change the check style of all the radio-buttons or check-boxes in a file with a single click of the mouse:

For more information about this tool, you can contact me directly.

Acrobat -- Create Live Filtered List

Direct purchase using PayPal ($50 only per license)!
Working with very long drop-downs can be a handful, especially since you can't set the size of the drop-down menu that opens. A much easier approach is to use a "live" filter, similar to the Google Auto-Suggest feature, where you start to type the text that you want to look for, and a menu pops-up appears with the relevant options. Up until now this was not possible to do in a PDF, but now it is!

Using this new script you can easily and quickly set up a plain text field to act as the "filter" for a combo- or a list-box field.

For example, let's say you have a list of all 50 states, and you want the user to be able to find their state quickly and easily:

(click to enlarge)

You run the script and select your fields, and the additional options like whether the filter should be case-sensitive (set to false in this case), and whether to show all items if the filter is blank (set to true below):

After doing so, when you enter a letter into the filter text field, the options in the list immediately change to just those starting with the entered text:

As you type more letters, the options reduce even further:

If you wish to see this in action for yourself, the file shown above can be downloaded from here, for free.

For more information about this tool, you can contact me directly.

Acrobat/Reader -- Print With Field Names

Direct purchase using PayPal ($25 only per license)!
Sometimes when working with a complex PDF form you want to have an indication of where each field is located. A printed copy of the form with the name of each field placed next to it can be a useful tool for that purpose, which is exactly what this tool does.

When you click on the "Print With Field Names"-button that this tool adds to Acrobat (or Reader), the file will be printed as usual, but with the names of all of the form fields just above the fields themselves (the names appear in red).

For example, this section of a PDF page:

Will look like this when we print it out:

After printing, the file is returned to its original state.  

Note: To use this tool in Reader, the file must have the right to add new form fields applied to it.

For more information about this tool, you can contact me directly.

Regarding Acrobat XI

As you've probably heard already, Adobe has released the newest version of the Acrobat and Reader family applications, called XI.

As always, I do my best to make sure that all of my scripts are compatible with all (recent) versions of Acrobat and Reader, and unless mentioned otherwise, they are.

However, with this new version Adobe has introduced a major change to the way Action files are saved (they are now XML-based, as opposed to the non-standard format they had before). This means that Actions that were created in previous versions of Acrobat can be used in Acrobat Pro XI, but can't be edited in any way. This will probably cause some issues if you purchase any of my tools that includes Action files.

I am working on creating new versions for all of my Actions that are compatible with this new format, and will add them gradually to my scripts, as soon as they're ready.


If you encounter any problem using one of my scripts in Acrobat (or Reader) XI, please let me know (try6767@gmail.com, as always), and I'll do my best to solve the problem for you.

Acrobat -- Create Dependent Dropdowns

Direct purchase using PayPal ($50 only per license)!
There are many instances where you might want to have dependent dropdowns (or combo-boxes, as they're sometimes called) in your PDF form, to provide the users of the form with a limited set of pre-defined option to choose from. This can be, for example, a set of clients and contact people, or a set of product categories and specific products, or even a list of countries and then cities within each country.

Creating such dependent drop-downs is complex and requires scripting knowledge, but now you can set up such a system with ease. All you have to do is use this script to select the relevant fields and then enter the primary and secondary items. The script will take care of the rest for you!

Here's how it looks like: First of all you select the 2 fields...

If the primary field already contains items, they will automatically be added to the first list.
Then you enter the primary and secondary values, either one by one, or multiple items (which also allows you to copy and paste text from other applications or files). 

Adding a single item to the Primary Data list (click to enlarge)

Adding multiple items to the Primary Data List (click to enlarge)

Adding multiple items to the Secondary List (click to enlarge)

And after you click OK, the values are immediately applied to the selected boxes:

For more information about this tool, you can contact me directly.

Acrobat -- Apply Format to Multiple Text Fields

Direct purchase using PayPal ($60 only per license)!

If you've ever created forms in Acrobat then you've probably encountered the frustrating inability to set multiple fields to have the same Format settings. When you select multiple fields and go to their Properties, the Format tab is simply not there, which means you have to edit each one manually, an exhausting and time-wasting process.

New feature: You can now select to list either all of the fields in the document, or just those on the current page. This is helpful when you have files with large amounts of fields and you only wish to process some of them.

When selecting multiple fields, the Format tab is not available

This annoyance has prompted me to create this new tool which allows you to set the Format settings for multiple fields easily and automatically.

When you first launch the tool you're prompted to select which type of format to apply. The options are:

• Number
• Percentage
• Date
• Time
• Special
• None

(click to enlarge)

After selecting one of these options, you'll be presented with a list of all the text fields in the file. Select the ones you wish to format (you can select multiple fields using the Ctrl and Shift keys), and then press Continue.


(click to enlarge)

If you didn't select None (which simply removes any current Format settings), you'll now be presented with a window where you can specify the specific options for the selected format, identical to those available in the built-in Format tab.

For the Number format you can specify:

• The number of decimal digits
• The separator style of the number
• Whether or not to include a currency symbol, and which one (including the option for a custom symbol, and if that symbols should appear before or after the amount)
• How to display a negative number

The number format dialog

For the Percentage format, you can specify:

• The number of decimal digits
• The separator style of the number

The percentage format dialog

For the Date and Time formats you can specify the format that will be used, either from a list or using your own custom format.

The date format dialog

The time format dialog

For the Special format you can either select one of the pre-defined masks, or specify your own.

The special format dialog

In this case I've used the Number format and specified 2 decimal digits, a standard separator style ("1,234.56") and the Dollar as the currency symbol to be used.
The result is that the selected fields now have this formatting:


(click to enlarge)

Using this tool can save you hours of tedious and boring work, and will make sure you have a consistent, error-free form.

For more information about this tool you can contact me directly.

Acrobat -- Add Zoom Areas

Direct purchase using PayPal ($40 only)!

If you have important areas in your PDF file that you want for the user to be able to easily zoom in and out to, this is the tool for you.
Using it you can convert standard form field buttons to "zoom areas" that will zoom in when clicked, and return to the original view when clicked again.
You can specify the zoom level to be used, or use the default level of 200%.

To see how these buttons work, download these sample files.
The first one is the page with the 4 buttons. The other two show the same file after running the script on it, once using the default zoom level, and once specifying a zoom level of 500%.

For more information about this tool you can contact me directly.

Acrobat -- Block Forbidden Words in Form Fields

Direct purchase using PayPal ($30 only)!
This script allows you to define a list of "forbidden" words which the users are not allowed to fill in the form fields in your PDF file.
The list can either be imported from a text file, or it can be entered manually.
You can also define what should happen if any of the forbidden words is entered. The options are:

• Reject the text the user entered in its entirety.
• Remove the forbidden words and accept the rest of the text.
• Replace the forbidden words with something else (for example "XXX" or "***"), and accept the new text.

Also, for each of these options you can define an error message to be shown to the user, with the text you specify.

Here's how it looks like when you use the tool:

In the first dialog you make your selections, and enter the list of forbidden words.

(click to enlarge)

When you press OK, the tool applies the required scripts to the selected text field.
If a user then enters text into one of those fields with one (or more) forbidden words, the tool goes into action when the field is exited.

(click to enlarge)

In this case, the error message is shown:

(click to enlarge)

And then the forbidden words are replaced by "XXX":

(click to enlarge)

As can be seen, the tool is case-insensitive and will identify both exact matches ("Fuck" in this case) as well as partial matches ("shitty") to the list of forbidden terms.

For more information about this tool you can contact me directly.

Batch Edit Links Zoom Level

Direct purchase using PayPal ($60 only per license)!
With this small yet powerful tool you can edit an entire folder of PDF files within seconds and set all of the links with a Go To Page-action or Go To Remote Page-action to any zoom setting you wish.

You can test out this tool by downloading this free demo version.
The demo version works exactly like the full tool, but it will only process the first 3 links on the first 3 pages of the first 3 files you select.

Using the tool is very simple. Just select the folder, set the options you want, and click Run!

Note: This application requires Java installed. However, you don't need to have Acrobat on your computer for it to work.

If you have any questions regarding this tool, you can contact me directly.

Acrobat -- Extract Chapters by Bookmarks

Direct purchase using PayPal ($40 only)!
This script will extract all the chapters from a PDF file based on the bookmarks structure. The names of the created files are based on the names of the bookmarks.

New feature: This script will now preserve the bookmark structure of each new chapter created. (Note: the bookmarks themselves will only work if they point to a Named Destination)
Due to a bug in Acrobat XI, this feature had to be disabled...

A free demo version of this script is available here.
This version will only extract the first chapter. Purchase the full version and be able to extract them all!

Create Encrypted Copies of a PDF File

Direct purchase using PayPal ($97 only per license)!

Have you ever encountered a situation where you have a PDF file that you wish to distribute to a group of people, and want to have a uniquely secured version of that file for each one of them? Think for example on a movie script that you wish to send to various people, or on a e-book that you want to sell to your clients, but one each of them to have a different password. How would you go about doing it?
Up to now the only option was either a very expensive product, or to do it manually in Acrobat... But not anymore.

Using this new stand-alone tool which I've created you can make as many secured copies of your file as you wish, using a variety of security options.
You can add a password that the user will need in order to open the file, or to use a password to determine what the user can and can't do with your file (such as print it, extract content from it, fill in the form fields in it, etc.), or both.

A FREE demo version of this tool is available to download from here. It contains all the functions available in the full version, but will process up to 5 files only. Of course, the full version can process as many files as you wish...

Here's how the main window of the tool looks like (click all images to enlarge):

The passwords can be either randomly generated by the tool, or you can use a list of passwords if you prefer. For the password that controls the editing of the file you can even decide to use the same password for all copies (it can be identical to the file open password, or one that you determine).

This tool works on both Apple and PC computers, and will generate a list of all the passwords used for the various copies of your file, so you can have an overview of them when distributing them to the recipients.

Acrobat -- Create Custom Links from Text

Direct purchase using PayPal ($60 only per license)!
Direct purchase of the Standalone version using PayPal ($120 only per license)!

Update II: There's now a free demo version of the stand-alone tool available. This version is identical to the full tool, but it will only create the first 3 links from the first 3 items in your list.

Update: Now available is a Standalone version of this tool, which runs independently of Acrobat and is therefore much more suited for processing large amounts of files, files with a lot of text in them or long lists of items to link. If you need to use this tool extensively, this is the version for you.
 

Let's say you have a PDF and you want to link all the instances of your name to your website, or all the times the words "Index" appear to the first page of the file, or even to a index.pdf file located elsewhere on your computer... Doing so would require going over them one by one, creating a link over each one, setting its properties, its action, etc. In short, a pain in the neck...

This is why I created this new tool, which you can use to automatically add links of various types of your PDF files.
The tool will read in an input file, for example a CSV file exported from Excel, with the search terms and the properties for each of those links, and will continue to create those links.

The possible actions the links can perform are:

•  Open a web page
•  Go to a specific page
•  Open a file
•  Open a relative file
•  Open an attached file
•  Go to a named destination

In addition, you can set the following properties for each link:

•  Visibility: A visible or invisible rectangle
•  Highlight Style: None, Invert, Outline or Inset/Push
•  Line Thickness: Thin, Medium, Thick
•  Color: Black, White, Red, Green, Blue or Yellow.

When you purchase this tool it comes with the complete specification of how to set up the input file, as well as a sample one.

This tool even comes with a batch process (aka Action), which allows you to add the links you wish to add to multiple files, with just a single click (provided you have the Pro version of Acrobat).

For more information about this tool you can contact me directly.

Acrobat -- Re-sort Duplex Pages

Direct purchase using PayPal ($25 only)!
Using this script you can re-sort a file that contains Duplex pages to the correct order.

Duplex pages order means pages which are in this order:
1,3,5,7,9,11,12,10,8,6,4,2
After running the script, the order would be the standard:
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12

This tool contains both a version to process a single file and a batch process (Action) that can be used in Acrobat Pro to process multiple files at the same time.
All for the low price of just $25!


For more information about this tool you can contact me directly.

Acrobat X -- Return Stamp Name to Stamps Menu

There is an unfortunate change made to the way the stamps menu works in Acrobat X.
While in previous versions the name of the stamp appeared in the Stamps menu underneath the stamp image, in Acrobat X it is gone. If you have multiple stamps with similar looks it is now very difficult to distinguish between them because of this new behavior (bug?).

(Click title for more...)

Acrobat -- Create "HotSpot" Highlights

Direct purchase using PayPal ($40 only)!
If you want to draw attention to certain areas in your PDF file when the user hovers with the mouse above them, this is the ideal tool to achieve that.
What this tool will do is add special cross highlights to the file that will show up in bright yellow when the user hovers with the mouse above the areas you define.

All you have to do is create form fields with the names "HotSpot1", "HotSpot2", "HotSpot3", etc., in your file, like so:

Acrobat -- Combine PDF Files in Numeric Order

Direct purchase using PayPal ($30 only)!
This tool is similar to my stand-alone tool, Merge PDF Files in True Numeric Order in that it combines a folder of PDF files in true numeric order, as opposed to the default behavior of Acrobat to use alphabetic order.
The difference is that this tool only works within Acrobat, and that it is somewhat more flexible than the other tool.
You select the first file in the sequence of files to combine (for example Page1.pdf) and the tool will create a new combined file of that file and all subsequent files in that folder, in their true numeric order: 1.pdf, 2.pdf, 3.pdf, ..., 9.pdf, 10.pdf, 11.pdf, etc.

The result will be saved in the save folder as "combined.pdf".

Acrobat -- List All Email Addresses

Direct purchase using PayPal ($20 only)!

If you want to create a summary of all the email addresses that appear in your file(s), you can use this script, for the low price of just $20!

The script can be used on a single file, or on multiple files in an Action (batch process), if you have Acrobat Pro.

If you have any questions regarding this tool, you can contact me directly.

Acrobat -- Search & Replace Text in Form Fields

Direct purchase using PayPal ($25 only)!
Similar to my Search & Replace Text in Bookmarks script, you can use this new script to search and replace the text in all the text fields in a single file, and if you have Acrobat Pro you can run this as an Action (AKA Batch Sequence) on multiple files, all for the low price of just $25!

Special offer: You can now get all three "Search & Replace Text" fields (for bookmarks, form fields and comments) for just $60, instead of $75! They can be purchased as a pack here.

IMPORTANT: This tool does not edit the actual static text of a PDF file, only text that is a part of a form field!

Using this script is very easy. You just enter the search term and the replace term:

And all of the matching text in your text fields is edited.

Before:

After:

On top of that, you can even use some basic Regular Expression commands, like \d for a digit, \s for white-spaces, $ as the beginning of the string and ^ for the end of it, etc.

If you have any questions regarding this tool, you can contact me directly.

Software Recommendation: SnapIt

Just wanted to recommend a handy tool I've been using to create my posts for this website: SnapIt Screen Capture is a handy tool for grabbing and saving screenshots.

You can capture anything you see on your PC screen with SnapIt. It is convenient tool for graphic designers, bloggers who capture and crop images for their posts, for tech writers who need to describe menus and interfaces of applications, web designers and those who work with graphics every day. It captures and auto saves images with one click.

* Supports hotkeys, auto-saving, clipboard
* Automatically copies screenshots to the clipboard
* Tracks capture history, auto-saves captured images
* Saves files in BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG and TIFF formats
* Auto-names captured images

For more information you can visit:
http://www.digeus.com/products/snapit/snapit_screen_capture_3_5.html

Acrobat -- Create Custom Email Links

Direct purchase using PayPal ($30 only)!

Acrobat has a built-in way to create links from email addresses, but the links are all the same and can't be customized in any way.
Using this script you can create email links that change their color when you hover above them with the mouse (from black to blue), and can even be customized to create an email with a certain subject line, CC or BCC addresses, and even the email message body itself.

The PDF file with the text before running the script:

The same file, with the newly created link:

The link as it looks like when hovering over it with the mouse:

If you have any questions regarding this tool, you can contact me directly.