Tech tip #23 - Acrobat(ics)

Dear Colleagues,

One of our colleagues suggested that I send out a tip about using Adobe Acrobat (please let me know if you have any questions/ideas/suggestions for tips!)

Adobe Acrobat has been a standard format for sharing documents in a consistent format for many years now. PDF is the format to use if you want anyone else to see your document the way you want it. Pretty much every device and computer can read .pdf files.

At SMUS we have the Adobe suite of products installed which includes Adobe Acrobat pro DC (by the way you can get a license to install this software at home for $9.75 US instead of $600! See SDS for details: https://sds.smus.ca/index.php?next_page=admin/mis/access_adobe_hup.php ). This means that not only can we read pdf format files and fill forms etc that we are sent, but we can also create, edit and otherwise modify pdf files. If you want to learn more about how to use Acrobat, I recommend following the “learn Adobe Acrobat pro DC” link in the program’s help menu or following the links on the “get started page” (there is a short video on how to edit pdfs there).

Amongst other features, the program will read documents out loud to you!

Most programs installed on our network allow you to print to PDF, which is a great way to make a document suitable for emailing or posting to your MOODLE or Google Classroom site.

If you have a pdf that you want to convert to Word, Exel, PowerPoint etc, it can also do that via the “File-Export to” menu.

You can also take multiple single-page or smaller pdf files and combine them into one document or conversely split a larger document into smaller ones, or single pages

There is also a tool that allows you to compare the contents of two pdf files to see what differences there are.

If you need help figuring any of this out, please don’t hesitate to contact one of the ed tech specialists on your campus.

Cheers

Mike

These tips are now being archived at the following location in a blog format: http://smustechtips.blogspot.ca

Also, please let me know if you have any tips you would like to share!

Michael Jackson

Science teacher, Technology Coordinator

St Michaels University School