The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Effective Use of the Adobe Reader Mery Leeding |
| Mery Leeding provides some useful tips and explains away some of the confusion that surrounds Adobe Acrobat and the Adobe Reader |
The Adobe Reader is designed
for both printing and viewing PDF files but some inexperienced users find it particularly difficult to read PDF
files on screen. They are not helped by PDF authors who fail to recognise the
differing design requirements for reading from the screen and reading printed
copy. When faced with a sub-optimal layout there are some things a user can do
for more effective reading.
Use the Latest Version
For Windows XP users this currently is version 7.0.5. Version 6.0.4 can be used back to
Windows 98 SE, and earlier Windows versions are limited to 5.0.5. Update patches
are available for earlier "point" versions. Often the patches have to be used
cumulatively, for example "point" versions 7.0.1, 7.0.2 and 7.0.3 need to be
applied in succession, but 7.0.5 can be applied to any earlier 7 version.
Multiple versions can be maintained on a PC but this is not recommended. I have
used concurrent installations of versions 5, 6 and 7 for demonstration purposes
but one disadvantage is that uninstalling an earlier version will require the
re-installation of any later version.
There are two forms of the Reader 7 download on the Adobe Web site. The largest
download (33 MB) includes the free Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition 3.0
which is not included in most third-party distributions of the Reader. Versions
are also available for the Macintosh, Unix, Linux and handheld devices.
Effective Screen Reading
The following suggestions are based on the experience of creating and reading
many thousands of PDFs over nearly a decade. The key to effective reading lies
in choosing the right viewing method for different types of page design.
Four PDF Page Views
Four page views are available on the View Menu (see Figure 1 adjacent) though
the toolbar icons are faster in practice.
Prior to Reader 7 three of the page views could be quickly selected from the
toolbar:
The icon appearance and text description in the mouse-over tool tips varies a
little between Reader versions. Actual Size is so variable that Adobe wisely
dropped it from the Reader 7 toolbar shown in Figure 2.
The fourth view, Fit Visible, is available only on the View Menu but is also
rarely worth the extra effort of selecting it. It is similar to Fit Width but
the text or content portion is enlarged and white left and right borders
eliminated. Any colour or graphics in the borders will be interpreted as content
by the Reader and Fit Visible will then make no difference.
I recommend using Fit Page for a quick check to see what part of the page you
wish to read, followed by clicking Fit Width and scrolling to that with the side
scroll bars or nudging with the down arrow key.
Given the limited value of Fit Actual and Fit Visible a quick way fast typists
can compare these is to hold down Ctrl and press 1, 2 and 3 in succession. Ctrl
+ 0 (zero) will also select Fit Page but is further along the keyboard.
Zooming
Figure 3 shows the zoom options on the toolbar.
I recommend you ignore the Zoom Out, Zoom and Zoom In since they tend to slow
down reading. However the Zoom In Tool (magnifying glass) is very useful for
quick enlargement of pages with fine detail, particularly in drawings or photos.
Depending on how the PDF was created those images may continue to show more
detail when magnified to the maximum 6400%.
Since zooming in and out can become confusing, use this tool in conjunction with
the next feature.
Previous & Next Views
The green arrows in the bottom status line work rather like browser forward and
backward arrows with an important difference. Choosing the
previous arrow doesn't merely return to a previous page but also sets the last
view used for that page.
If the last view was on the current page then it will go back to that view. So
if you use the Zoom In Tool to magnify part of the page, simply click the
Previous arrow to return to the whole page ready, if necessary, to zoom in to
another area on it. Do not attempt to scroll around the page in magnified view
to see another area — that will take much longer and it is easy to get "lost".
Logical & Physical Pages
Figure 4 shows not only the previous and next arrows but the page numbering and
forward, backward, beginning and ending page navigation. Users often complain
that PDF physical page numbers do not correspond with the document page numbers.
This is not the fault of PDF per se but the ignorance or laziness of the PDF
author. Document page
numbering in the status line has long been available using Acrobat and Figure 4
shows an example.
Reader users do not need to know how the numbers are created but if you see a
format similar to that shown in the figure then selecting, say, xvii, will go to
document page xvii, while selecting a normal number will go to the corresponding
document page.
More Screen Area
There are two additional ways of increasing the reading area of a PDF page.
The vertical height on screen can be increased by temporarily removing the
toolbar and menu lines with the combination of F8 and F9. These are
toggles so using them again will return those lines. There is no real need to
remember which is which. I have long advocated this technique and Adobe have
given some endorsement in adding an icon in the bottom left corner, second from
the left, with a minus (-) to indicate the toolbars can be hidden and a plus (+)
when they need to be revealed.
Full Screen Mode
Clicking the bottom left corner icon (a computer) will show the PDF page full
screen without any surrounding items. This has also long been an option using
Ctrl+L as an on/off full screen toggle, with ESC also cancelling the full screen
view.
To navigate forward and backward you can use Left/Right mouse clicks, PageUp/PageDown
or UpArrow/ DownArrow.
If the pages start advancing every few seconds like a slide show check the
setting under Edit > Preferences > Full Screen and unclick the box la-
belled "Advance every". Of course if you want automatic page advance you can use
that window to set the number of seconds delay. That preferences window can
disable the mouse click advance as a safety measure for presentations where the
mouse is used as a pointer. You can also set the type of transition you prefer,
the simple "Replace" being the default. I mention these things in case the PDF
author has changed the settings for the particular document.
Facing & Continuous Pages
On the bottom left of the screen are icons for the other possible viewing modes
(Figure 5). Facing Pages and Continuous Facing Pages reduce the size on screen
and are best reserved for occasions where you are searching for interesting
times.
The Continuous Page view is useful where you want to read smoothly from the
bottom of one page to the top of the next. Selecting it will avoid the
irritating accidental scrolling to a the next page before finishing reading the
previous one. It is particularly useful when combined with the next feature.
Auto Scrolling
At first this seemed a bit of a gimmick. By view menu or Ctrl+Shift+H, a page
will automatically start scrolling
through a document and continuous page view is turned on to avoid page break
jumps. It can be used for fast reading or skimming provided you learn a few
controls.
Scrolling can be stopped completely with ESC. Holding the left mouse button down
stops scrolling and releasing the mouse resumes scrolling. Make sure the mouse
pointer is over an area of the page that has no hyperlinks; margin areas are
usually safe to use.
Ifyou want to skip ahead the PageUp, PageDown, Home and scroll bars work as
expected. The End key also goes to the end of the document but obviously
scrolling stops.
Try it the next time you have a long document to scan and you may be surprised
how useful it is.
Bookmarks still work while auto scrolling but there one thing to remember. If
you click a bookmark the "focus" of the program moves to the bookmark column.
ESC no longer stops scrolling and the mouse pointer must be over the actual page
before the left click stops scrolling.
PDF Authors Take Note
The Reader could be used more effectively if authors of PDFs designed for screen
reading gave some thought to the viewer's needs. Setting pages landscape (who
has portrait-style monitors?) with two to four columns of readable-sized fonts
can make a tremendous difference. Check out an issue of the Adobe Magazine if
you want to see an effective PDF page design that handles a large amount of
information per page and eliminates most scrolling and zooming. There is a link
to the Adobe magazines at http://www.adobe.com.au.
Reprinted from the March 2006 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
