Acrobat -- Populate Fields From Dropdown

Direct purchase using PayPal ($40 only per license)!
Update (25/04/2017): Since many forms are now used on mobile devices I've updated this tool so that it will produce files that work on an iPad, using Readdle's PDF Expert app, which currently offers the best support for scripts on that platform.

This tool allows you to set-up one of the most commonly requested features in PDF forms, a drop-down field that populates other fields with data when a selection is made it in.

It makes the entire process very easy and simple to do. All you have to have are the PDF form with the form fields, and the data organized in a spreadsheet with the field-names in the first row. That's it!

And it's even possible to use it multiple times in the same file, using different data files, without any conflicts between the different fields...

For example, let's say we have all of this data in an Excel spreadsheet that we want to import into our PDF:

The original data file (click to enlarge)

 We just need to save it as a tab-delimited text file (which is one of the built-in options in the Excel Save As dialog).
We then open our PDF file (notice the names of the form fields match those in the header row of the Excel file), and click the button that tool adds to Acrobat:

Now we select the input text file we created before, and then specify the "main" drop-down, the one the will populate the other fields when its value is changed:

That's it! We can now see that the drop-down list is populated with all of the names from the "Name" column in our original data file:

And when we make a selection in the drop-down, the other fields are immediately updated with the relevant data from that row:

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

Acrobat -- Insert Blank Page

Direct purchase using PayPal ($30 only)!

Update (19-04-2014): Another new feature! It's now possible to specify the dimensions of the blank page(s) you're adding with a simple dialog that appears when you select where to add them.

The dialog allows you to enter the desired width and height of the page, in either Inches, Millimeters, or PostScript Points.

Update (17-10-2014): I just added a brand new and powerful feature to this tool! You can now insert multiple blank pages after every X amount of pages into your file. So not just a single page as before, now you can insert many pages in seconds.

With this script you can insert a new blank page to you PDF files with a single click! The size of the pages will match the size of the other pages in your files.
You can choose from the following options:

• Insert a blank page at the beginning of the file
• Insert a blank page at the end of the file
• Insert a blank page before the current page
• Insert a blank page after the current page
• Insert a blank page after/before every X pages

When installed, the tool adds a menu button to Acrobat with these options:

(click to enlarge)

If you select the last option you're presented with this dialog where you can define how and where to insert the blank page(s) you want to add to the file:

The results can be seen in the Pages panel on the left:

(click to enlarge)

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

Acrobat -- Batch Combine All PDF Files in a Folder

Direct purchase using PayPal ($85 per license)!

A free demo version of this tool that will combine up to two files in each folder can be found here.

This is a new batch tool, so it can only be used in Acrobat Pro.
With this tool you can combine all of the (PDF) files in a folder to a single file (in order!) and have this file saved into the same folder (using the folder's name as the new file name).
New feature: You can now select to automatically create a bookmark pointing to each file in the merged document.
ANOTHER new feature: Now you can also select to create a single, "master" file at the end of the process, which contains all of the processed files, including a bookmark for each folder and file.

Acrobat -- Word Count (FREE)

Update: This tool is now FREE. You can download it from here.

Just like the Word function, this script will tell you how many words there are in an entire PDF document, or on a specific page.



For more information about this script, you can contact me directly, and if you find this tool useful and would like to donate, it's always appreciated!

Acrobat -- Import/Export Tooltips

Direct purchase using PayPal ($25 only per license)!
This new handy tool is perfect for translators who work with PDF files.
If your file contains form fields then you probably want to translate the tooltip text that appears when the user hovers over your fields. So how to do it?

Well, the solution is this new script I've developed that allows you to export the full list of tooltips to a text file which can be edited in Excel and then imported back into the PDF, quickly and easily.

Here's how it works.
You have a PDF file with form fields and tooltips, like this one:

The original PDF, with one of the tooltip texts

You run the Export Tooltips command on it (can be seen in the Tools menu in the screenshot above), and it generates a text file that contains the field names as well as their current tooltips.
This text file can be opened in Excel, or any other plain-text editor (like Notepad or Notepad++):

The original output file

At this point we can edit the second column and inserted our translated texts (in Spanish, in this case):

The translated file

We close this file in Excel, go back to Acrobat and now run the Import Tooltips command:

We select the edited text file and the script imports the new tooltips:

And the results:

The new "Name" tooltip

 

The new "email" tooltip

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

Acrobat/Reader - Synchronized Scrolling Two (Or More) PDF Documents

Direct purchase using PayPal ($40 only per license)!
Update (11/01/2017): A FREE demo version of this tool is now available here.
It can be used to test it out, but it only contains the "Scroll Down" command.

Another New Feature: You can now easily align the viewing position of all the open files with the active one.

New Feature:  The tool can now scroll any number of open files, not just two, as requested.

Comparing PDF documents side by side is a common DTP task in Acrobat or Reader, but the problem is you can't scroll two documents at the same time, so keeping them aligned can be difficult and time consuming.
That is the reason I've developed this new script which allows you to keep your documents in perfect alignment while you review them.

You can select the scrolling offset (in points) and then scroll both documents up, down, to the left, to the right, or skip pages forwards or backwards, all in perfect sync.

The windows themselves can be arranged at whatever configuration you find most comfortable, and can even be placed on different monitors.

IMPORTANT: This script does not allow you to synchronize the scrolling of the files using the mouse or the keyboard arrows directly. It only works through the buttons that it adds to the interface of the application.

After installing the script, the new scrolling options are available under a new sub-menu under the Window menu, as well as under the Tools menu (or toolbar, for easy access):

(click to enlarge)

And after using the Scroll Down option, the documents have simultaneously scrolled and now look like this:

(click to enlarge)

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

Acrobat/Reader -- Unlock All Comments (FREE)

Some PDF files (like those generated by Acrobat when using the Compare Documents command) have locked comments that can't be edited or removed. You can use this simple (and FREE) script to unlock all of these comments with a single click, and then you'll be able to edit them, unless there's a security policy that prevents it.

This script can be used in both Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader.
You can download it here.

Here's how it looks like in Reader:

The original file with the locked comments. Notice the padlock icon next to each one on the right.

The same file after running the script on it from its menu item in the Tools panel.

The resulting file. All the padlock icons are gone, and I was able to delete the first highlight on the page.

As always, if you have any questions about this tool, or any other tool I've developed, you can contact me directly, and if you find this tool useful and would like to donate, it's always appreciated!

Acrobat/Reader -- Move Comment Popups To The Edge (FREE)

A user's request on the Adobe Forums prompted me to create this small utility that allows you to move all of the comment popups windows to the side of the page where they are located with a single click. This script can be used in both Acrobat and the free Reader.

The script can be downloaded (for FREE) from here.

Here's a page with a couple of comments that obscure the text. You can see the button the script added on the right, under the Extended panel:

And here's the same page after clicking that button. The popups have been moved out of the way, and then page is much less cluttered now:

As always, if you have any questions about this tool, or any other tool I've developed, you can contact me directly, and if you find this tool useful and would like to donate, it's always appreciated!

Acrobat -- Print Multiple Pages Per Sheet

Direct purchase using PayPal ($40 only per license)!

Update (16/02/2021): Now available, a free DEMO version of this tool, that will print up to 3 pages.

Update (12/09/2016): It's now possible to specify any custom page size you wish!

The new script dialog, with the custom page size option

One of the biggest differences between using Adobe Acrobat on a Windows computer and on a Mac is that the virtual Adobe PDF printer is not available on the latter. This means that the option to print a multiple pages from a PDF file to a single sheet is not available to Mac users, which is a shame as it is very handy when you want to create a summary or a hand-out.

This problem is now easily solved using my latest tool, which allows anyone to print as many pages as they want to a single page. And after printing you can save the generated file as a new PDF, so you don't have just a physical copy of it, but a digital one as well!

Here's how it works. After purchasing and installing the script a new option is added to the File menu, just under the Print command (the screenshots below are from a Windows machine, but it will be the same on a Mac, of course):

The new menu item under File (click to enlarge)

You're then prompted to select which pages to print, as well as the layout of the generated pages, their paper size, whether to include the page borders on the print-out and whether to close the new file after it's printed:

The settings dialog of the script

When you press OK in the dialog above, the new file is created and the Print dialog is automatically opened, ready to print the newly created file (notice that there are 4 original pages on the first page in the preview):

The Print dialog with multiple pages per sheet

After you printed the file, if you didn't select to close it automatically, you will be able to save it, edit it, sent it to others, etc., just like any other PDF.

The resulting file

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

Acrobat -- Spell Check Suite

Direct purchase using PayPal ($85 only per license)!

Try before you buy: Free demo version

This suite of tools adds full spell-checking capabilities to Acrobat.
You can now check and mark up regular text and bookmarks in addition to the standard check for form fields and comments which already exists in Acrobat.

Update IV (25-08-2016): New update for this tool! It can now handle ligatures symbols as well as end-of-line hyphenated words better than before.

Update III (18-06-2014): A new feature just added to this tool, allowing you to define "No Spell Check" zones, which the tool will ignore when it spell-checks the document.
Another improvement is the option to define whether or not to perform a case-sensitive spell-check. By default the check is case in-sensitive.

Update II: Now this script includes a batch process, which allows you to spell-check multiple files one after another (provided you have Acrobat Pro, of course).

Update I: A free demo version of this tool is now available here. It allows you to select a dictionary and then spell-check the first page of the currently active document.

The languages available for checking are:

• Bulgarian
• Catalan
• Croatian
• Czech
• Danish
• Dutch
• English (Canada)
• English (United Kingdom)
• English (United States)
• Estonian
• Finnish
• French (Canada)
• French (France)
• German (Germany)
• German (Switzerland)
• Greek
• Hungarian
• Italian
• Latvian
• Lithuanian
• Norwegian Bokmål
• Norwegian Nynorsk
• Polish
• Portuguese (Brazil)
• Portuguese (Portugal)
• Romanian
• Russian
• Slovak
• Slovenian
• Spanish
• Swedish
• Turkish

In Acrobat X or later the following languages are also available:

• Arabic
• Hebrew

The main menu of the suite looks like this:

The language dictionary selection looks like this:

Each of these dictionaries can be customized: Words can be added and removed from it, either using a simple input dialog or through a file (which allows adding or removing multiple words in one go).

When you run spell-check a document, the misspelled words are underlined and the suggestions for the correct spelling are added to the highlight:

Update: Added functionality to check just a part of the document. This is ideal if you have a single document consisting of multiple languages. You simply add "Spell Checking Zones" to your document, and only the words within those zones will be checked.

Here's how such a zone looks like (notice that only the misspelled words inside the zone were marked):

 

IMPORTANT NOTE:  This tool does NOT offer a way of fixing the found spelling mistakes, it just marks them on the page. To do so you would need to go back to the original file format and fix it there, or manually use the Edit Text command in Acrobat (not recommended, but possible).

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

Acrobat -- Move Pages From X To Y

Direct purchase using PayPal ($20 only per license)!
Fed up of moving PDF pages around in Adobe Acrobat by clicking them, holding down, dragging up or down the Pages list, hoping you manage to get it to scroll and then praying you don't drop them in the wrong spot? Well, no more!
Using this new tool I've developed you can easily and quickly move around one page, or a whole range of pages, from point X to point Y in your file.

When you run the script just enter which page(s) to move, and where to move them to, and you're done! It's as easy as that.

Here's how it looks like:

Moving one page down the file

Moving a range of pages up the file

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

Acrobat / Reader -- Enlarge Comment Lines

Direct purchase using PayPal ($50 only per license)!
Recently, the lines in the comments in Adobe Acrobat and Adobe (Acrobat) Reader became minuscule, making it very difficult to spot them on the page. With this tool you can make them all big again, with a single click.
The tool can be used in both applications and will edit the lines of the comment types:

• Strikeout
• Replace Text
• Underline
• Squiggly

It can be run on all the comments in the entire file, or on just the selected comments (it will ignore comments from other types), or on all the comments in the current page.

For example, let's say we have these 4 comments on the page. Their default appearance is quite small, as can be seen, so we click the script's button to enlarge them (can be seen under the Tools panel on the right):

And the results are much more visible:

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

Acrobat / Reader -- Print Every X Page

Direct purchase using PayPal ($30 only per license)!
Important: This script is only compatible with Acrobat/Reader version XI or higher!

This new tool allows you to easily print a subset of pages in a PDF file that you can't otherwise do, either in Adobe Acrobat or in Adobe (Acrobat) Reader.
Let's say you want to print every third page in a 800-page file. Instead of manually entering the page numbers into the Print dialog of the application (and then discovering it will only accept 100 characters!), you can use this tool to easily and quickly generate the pages list that you want to print.

So here we have a file with 805 pages and we want to print each 3rd page, starting from page 5 and ending with page 800, for example:

The file we want to print and the new button added by the script, in Adobe Acrobat

As you can see, the script added a new button to the Tools menu on the right.
If you use it in Reader it will be added under the Extended panel:

The same file and the script's button, as it appears in Adobe Reader

So we now click the button, and this dialog box appears:

The script's dialog window

In this box we can specify which X page to print or not to print (in this case we want to print every third page, so we enter "3"), and from which page number to start printing (page 5, in this case) and until which page number to print (page 800). The default values are every second page, printing from the first to the last pages.

After we click OK the Print dialog appears, with the correct page numbers filled in:

The Print dialog with the start of the Pages list, starting with 5

The end of the Pages list, ending with 800

All we have to do now is select the other printing options we want to use and click on Print, and we're done!

If we want to print every page except for the third pages then we can select the second option in the first drop-down menu in the dialog window:

The result is the following pages list:

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