Remove extra returns from PDFs

Have you ever copied text out of a PDF and noticed that at the end of the every line break there is a hard return? This can be quite annoying when you are trying to copy and paste text out of a PDF and then re-flow it back into a new document. The trick it to create a tagged PDF. In Adobe Acrobat Professional go to the advanced menu and choose accessibility > add tags to document. Now when you copy and paste the text it will re-flow correctly when pasted into a new document.

Learn What Application Made your PDF

Have you ever wondered what application made any given PDF? It is very easy to find out. Just open any PDF in Adobe Acrobat Professional and go to File > Properties. This will open up the general properties dialog and halfway down it will tell you application (and version) created your PDF.

Initial View in PDFs

Most designers have large monitors (the lucky ones at least), but clients rarely do. A problem that can happen when you send a PDF of your design to a client is that the PDF opens and appears very large on their small screen. They may get upset and call you at 2 in the morning to inform you that you made the layout "too big." if the client realized they could simply fit the page to fit the screen, they would be able to view the PDF without any issues. Unfortunately, many people do know how or want to know how to do this.

The solution to this problem is to set the initial view the PDF before you send it to them, thus avoiding the early morning wake-up call. To do this, open up the PDF in acrobat professional and look at the document preferences (Cmd-D, Ctrl-D). In the preferences choose initial view and change it to fit page. Now whoever opens the PDF, the file will open and fit the screen no-matter what size their monitor is!