5) reordering pages

To reorder your pages in Acrobat, simply click on and drag the page’s thumbnail to its new position in the PAGE THUMBNAILS panel. (Its new position is indicated with a blue highlighted line.) To show the PAGE THUMBNAILS panel, go to: VIEW / SHOW-HIDE / NAVIGATION PANES / PAGE THUMBNAILS:

6) add watermarks

WATERMARK can also be found under the EDIT / EDIT TEXT & IMAGES icons at the top. You can ADD, UPDATE or REMOVE any watermark you’d like to add.

In this example, I added the word “DRAFT” to my page:

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7) create buttons and fields

Adding interactivity to your PDFs allows you to create forms where users can complete fields and click on buttons! You could create your form in InDesign or Illustrator, save it out as a PDF, and then open this in Acrobat to add interactivity. To do this, click on “PREPARE FORM” in the right sidebar menu. At the top you’ll then see a menu with form options, such as: text fields, dropdown menus, checkboxes and radio buttons. It looks like this:

If you want a field for the user to type in information, simply select the text field icon and create a box. You’ll be prompted to give the text field a name (make each one unique or use Acrobat’s numbering nomenclature) and then check if this is a required field. You can click on “All Properties” to change any other attribute about it. The other interactions have similar pop-ups and dialog boxes that allow you modify them after you add them to your form.

8) add comments

Adding comments to your PDF is a convenient way to provide additional information to a document: be it to enlighten its co-author or elaborate the reader on the file’s functionality. Comments can be added by clicking on the comment icon at the top. Watch my quick tip video to see exactly how it’s done:

You then place your cursor exactly where you want to leave the comment. Click down and a small annotations field will appear into which you may add your comments. I used this all the time to “mark up” revisions for my design team to make changes to layouts! It’s really handy because it records not only who left the comment, but also WHEN they left it.

Download my FREE 12-page guide to creating, modifying and protecting PDFs here:

9) reduce file size

If you are creating a file that will be downloaded, file size may be an important factor to consider. If you notice your document is hefty, you can shrink it under FILE / SAVE AS OTHER / REDUCED SIZE PDF:

Be sure to save it as a different filename so you can compare quality and file size. I’ve seen many times where saving it as a reduced size PDF didn’t really shrink it all that much–so be careful that you don’t give up quality of the images therein if you’re not making the file more lightweight!

10) password protect your pdf

You may have the need to password protect your pdf so only people with the correct password can open your file. Admittedly, I’ve never had to do this, but then again, I don’t work at a law firm either. I can imagine this functionality could come in handy in a myriad of industries and applications. To password protect your PDF, go to FILE / PROPERTIES / SECURITY / SECURITY METHOD:

There you have it, my top 10 PDF tips and tricks that you can use even if you’re new to the program! If you’d like to know other things with regard to PDFs or Adobe Acrobat, feel free to leave a comment below and I’ll answer your question!