Monday, March 12, 2012

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!

Monday, March 5, 2012

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.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

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.