PDF for Lawyers

Upcoming seminar on Acrobat - How to create forms

Rick Borstein and Mark Middleton putting on a free online seminar what will demonstrate the best ways of creating and using PDF Forms in the legal world.   The one hour seminar will focus on Acrobat 8, but most of the features will also work in Acrobat 7.  For more information about this August 9th event click here.

Printing problem after inserting pages

I've had a problem with Acrobat 7.0 on my Mac lately, and if it is persistent then it's a real problem for lawyers who rely on PDF files as their primary document management system.  Perhaps it's only a problem with 7.0 on the Mac, in which case it isn't likely to affect most users.

Here's the problem: I scanned all the documents that my opponent sent me in a case.  Opponent had bates-stamped the documents and, since the bates numbers correspond to the page numbers, it is easy to navigate to find documents (or particular pages within documents) simply by entering the bates number.  But, as I was preparing to file an opposition brief that needed exhibit attachments, I found that when I printed out pages from the opponent's documents the resulting print job looked like a black and white smear painting that was done by a two year old child.  Not good.

I could see the pages on my computer just fine.  I just couldn't print them.  Obviously, I couldn't attach my computer file as part of the court record, so I was in a bit of a fix.  However, I didn't panic.  I thought about my options.  I had no backup copy of the PDF file that was uncorrupted (note to self: keep backup copies of each production) that I could use.  But I did have a paper file copy that I could scan (note to self: congratulations on using paper as backup).  So I scanned the paper copy and then all was well.

How did this weird 'printing problem' happen? Obviously the file got corrupted somehow.  And, since it has happened before I'm zeroing in on the problem.   I'm pretty sure that it is happening when I append pages to the existing file.  This is what I've done when my opponent produces more documents.  I just "insert" them to the existing file at the end, and that keeps all the bates-numbering intact.  If the case had thousands of pages of documents I'd probably break the files up into groups of 1,000 pages each.  It seems like I can print fine until I insert additional pages and that has the effect of making some of the pages print illegibly (it's not clear why only some get corrupted, and it's not only the new or old pages).

So this "insert pages" feature may be weird problem for me.  In the future I'm going to keep PDF copies of each separate production.  I can renumber the pages to correspond to the bates-numbering so my 'quick search' trick will still work. Bottom line: always keep lots of backups.  It's easy to do in the digital world, so why not? 

Problems with Adobe 7 Reader

Apparently, there is a problem with Adobe 7 Reader adding menu items to Outlook.  Tech guru Leo Laporte criticized Adobe in his recent podcast (radio show notes; scroll down to find Adobe discussion), saying he prefers Adobe 6 Reader. I highly recommend Leo's podcast if you want to keep up with tech tips and solutions.

Free Typewriter Tool for Acrobat Reader

Adobe has released a free tool called the Typewriter Tool.  This feature is included in the latest version the free Acrobat Reader (ver. 7.05) and allows one to enter text into a PDF document.  In other words, if you have a PDF document that is a form that you would normally print out and use a typewriter to fill out, then you can simply use this tool to do what you would do with an ordinary typewriter.  If you have version 7.0 of Adobe Reader and need to update it click here (Windows) or here (Mac).

Acrobat 7.0 Problems with Paperport

Technolawyer has a brief post on Acrobat 7.0's failure to integrate with Paperport.  Apparently, the problem stems from a Windows registry update issue.

Acrobat 7.0 Integration with Outlook

The latest version of Adobe Acrobat has tight integration with Microsoft Outlook, the widely used E-Mail program. What does this mean exactly? It means that when you install Acrobat 7.0 (Standard or Professional) it puts a button on your Outlook interface that you can click on to create PDFs of your emails. In fact, you can highlight a folder in Outlook and have the entire contents of that folder immediately converted to a single PDF file, that includes all the attachments as embeded files.

The resulting PDF file is also automatically bookmarked with three bookmarks: Author, Subject and Date. In other words the bookmarks will have one index of all emails alphabetically arranged by author, another by subject, and the last is a chronological arrangement of all emails. Of course, you can text search the emails as well.

This is a fantastic way to archive your old emails, or to share them with colleagues. One small quibble, though. While it's nice to have the attachments embedded, the attachments are not converted to PDF. So that means you have to have the native application that created the attachments in order to view them.

Free Acrobat 7.0 Webinar for ABA members

The ABA Law Practice Managment Section is sponsoring a free webinar on what's new in the latest version of Adobe Acrobat 7.0.  It's free for ABA Members, who can register at this link.  The webinar is a one hour deal that will take place on Tuesday May 24th at 12:00 pm noon CST, or 1:00 pm EST (do the math for the other time zones on your own).

Acrobat 7.0 - Interview with Duff Johnson

PlanetPDF has an interesting and informative interview with Duff Johnson in which he is asked about Acrobat 7.0.  He extols the new commenting feature (which allows even users of the free Reader program to add and save comments).  I particularly liked this observation that he made about the need for Adobe to make its product more accessible to the average user:

My advice to Adobe would be simple; focus at all times on helping the CFOs and CIOs understand exactly how high-level use of Acrobat and PDF will save them money -- and that includes being honest about what it will take to make this stuff really work.

Lawyers and courts need to start learning more about PDFs.  Electronic filing is only the tip of the iceberg.  Acrobat has a host of great features that lawyers could take advantage of in their practice.  Interestingly, it's the small firms and solos who seem to grasp this concept most readily.

For more information on Acrobat 7.0 check out this article from PlanetPDF.

Acrobat Reader 7.0 is now available

The new Acrobat Reader 7.0 is now available as a free download.  To download it and to learn about the new features click here.