The PDF Blog

The Nitro PDF Professional interface is set up in a particular way by default but it’s easy to customize based on how you like to work. It’s simply a matter of familiarizing yourself with the settings and configuring Nitro Pro to your liking.

You can edit the interface preferences by heading to the Interface panel in your Preferences. Just click on the Nitro PDF button in the top left, and then click the Nitro Preferences button. The dialog below will open for you to modify.

Read on to learn about each preference.

Extended tooltips

The extended tooltips follow the same principle as the new tooltips in Microsoft Office 2007 application: explain the purpose of each tool (and if there’s room how to use it) so the user won’t need to dig through the user manual. If you’re on a very slow computer, it’s possible these may slow your performance a little, or as a power user you may find them unnecessary. Either way you can turn them off via the preferences.

Explanatory text on dialogs

Many dialogs in Nitro Pro include additional explanatory information at the top of them. Again, like the extended tooltips above, the goal is to help you understand the purpose of the dialog and how to use it, and (hopefully) reduce the need to search through the user guide to understand what’s going on. After using Nitro Pro for a while, you may find this additional information unnecessary — if so, just turn it off in the preferences.

Application color schemes

Nitro PDF Professional includes three different color schemes (a.k.a skins) to choose from. Black, blue and silver. Black is designed to fit the Microsoft Vista look and feel, blue is designed to fit Microsoft XP, and the silver is an added extra that gives you a little more of a Mac feel.

If you use Office 2007, you have similar color scheme options. I like to make the color scheme in Nitro different to Office 2007 so they’re easier to tell apart.

Information bar display

The Information bar is there to notify you of important information about the PDF files you open in Nitro Pro. This includes notifying you when PDF files have been secured, digitally signed, or contain form fields. For some users, particularly those who regularly deal with these kinds of files, receiving constant notifications can get annoying. In the Interface preferences you can turn off either or both of these kinds of notifications.

Bookmark text size

Your eyesight or monitor configuration may mean that you need to adjust the text size used in the Bookmarks pane. With the preferences you can switch between small, medium and large.

Happy Nitro Pro tweaking!

In addition to providing the ability to customize your PDF output settings, the free (Windows-based) PrimoPDF provides four predefined configurations based on popular PDF usages –- Screen, Print, eBook, and Prepress. Although providing eBook and Screen options might seem redundant -– after all, output from both types are optimized for viewing on an electronic display — there are some key differences summarized below.

‘eBook’ PDF files

• Creates average-sized PDF files, balancing file size with visual fidelity
• Downsamples images to 150 dpi
• Fonts are fully embedded.

Best for:

• PDFs intended for downloading from the web, in cases where readers will likely save a local copy
• PDFs that are to be viewed on a variety of display devices, including eBook readers
• Situations in which smallest file size is less important than ensuring the document precisely resembles the visual quality of the original file.

‘Screen’ PDF files

• Creates the smallest PDFs, for faster display and reduced storage requirements
• Downsamples images to 72 dpi
• Fonts are not embedded.

Best For:

• PDFs intended for viewing online via the browser, or where the document might be distributed via email
• PDFs that are to be viewed on a computer monitor only
• Situations in which smallest file size is critical, and retaining pixel-perfect visual quality of the original is not required.

Knowing these differences can be helpful when choosing one option over the other, depending on how your output will be used.

This post looks at Microsoft Word to PDF conversion, and how, by converting files from within Microsoft Word to PDF, you can create more intelligent PDF files faster. I won’t step you through how to create and secure your PDF files — it’s so obvious I don’t think you’ll have any trouble working that out — instead, I’ll explain the settings and options available to you, and how and when you might like to use them.

We’ll be looking at Microsoft Office 2007 but you can you can do pretty much everything in older versions of Office, albeit with a few extra clicks here and there — the Nitro PDF ribbon tab installed with Office 2007 is more task focused, in particular speeding up tasks involving securing PDF files.

PDF conversion settings

While the options in the Create PDF and Secure PDF groups contain the creation tasks, the Settings group is where you go to set how your PDF files should be converted. The really handy thing to keep in mind is that the settings you choose here are remembered, so if you like to perform the same conversions over and over, once you’ve chosen them here, all you’ll need do is click on one of the Create and/or Secure buttons to convert the Word file.

• Open PDF after creation. Um, this is extremely obvious. Once converted to PDF, it is opened in your default PDF viewer. (I have this on permanently as I always give my PDF files a quick check before sharing.)
• Add hyperlinks to PDF. If you have any hyperlinks in your Word file to web pages or other documents, leaving this setting on will keep them active.
• Prompt for filename. This adds an extra step to your conversion process by asking you to name the PDF file.
• Convert Headings to Bookmarks. This is one of my favorite features as it makes your PDF files much more usable and easier to navigate. Nitro Pro uses the outline or structure of your Word file to automatically create a set of navigable bookmarks in your PDF and results in a set of bookmarks appearing like this:The feature requires you to use the paragraph styles that are available in Microsoft Word (Heading 1, Heading 2, etc.), which means no more making up formatting as you go using just the font formatting tools! (You really should stop doing that if you are.) By clicking on the More Settings button on the Nitro PDF tab, you can choose the styles and headings to become bookmarks, as well as set the level — meaning for example you can setup the structure so that Heading 2 content is always indented as a child bookmark of Heading 1 bookmarks.
• Attach source file. This allows you to attach or embed your Word file inside the PDF you create. This is useful for a few reasons: access to the source file may be useful if major editing is required, there’s less chance of either (PDF or Word) version of the file being misplaced during distribution, and (because the PDF format is good at compressing its contents) putting the Word file inside the PDF can keep the overall size down.

• Convert document summary. The option includes whatever details are listed in your document properties in Word, including document title, author, subject and keywords. (See a little more on this in my recent post.) If you’re unsure of whether you want to share this kind of information and want to maintain a little extra privacy, leave this setting off.

• Include document revisions (track changes). This option in More Settings includes (and makes visible) all changes that have been made to a Word file when the Track Changes feature is turned on. This not likely to be a feature most of you will need, but it can be handy for viewing and printing out all document revisions during the editing and proofing stages. It’s very important to note, that if this setting is on and you are tracking changes — even if changes are hidden from your view in Word — they will appear in the PDF you create. I recommend leaving this off unless you’re sure you need it.

• Image and font handling. These options in More Settings let you control how the images and fonts are handled when converted. These settings can affect both the size and appearance of the PDF you produce.

• Images. The basic rule of thumb for images is, the lower you downsample (and reduce the dots per inch), the smaller the file size and lower the quality of the images. When file portability outweighs image quality, you can probably get away with 96dpi; but when recipients may like to print your documents, choose either 150dpi (reasonable for most printers) or 300dpi (high quality for most office printers).
• Fonts. Embedding is the most important thing that determines how fonts will appear, how editable they may be, and how large the PDF file becomes. If you want the text in your documents to look exactly like the original Word version, then you need to use embed or subset embed. Using these ensures the text will look exactly the same as the fonts are embedded in the PDF.You might ask, why embed just a subset of a font when you could embed the whole font, or vice versa? Well, they both have their pluses and minuses. Embedding the whole font can increase the file size quite a bit, but can make editing the text in the PDF file a lot more possible; whereasembedding just a subset of a font keeps the file size smaller, but can become problematic if corrections to the PDF are required in the future and the same font is not installed on the user’s computer.Not embedding fonts at all, is something most of you won’t need. The important thing here is that you must be completely sure that all your recipients have the same fonts installed and aware that the chances are pretty high that (even if they have installed what appear to be the same fonts) the text content will look a little different to how it does on your computer. If you don’t mind that and file size is the all important issue, then not embedding at all will do the job for you.

Hopefully I’ve shed some light on your Word to PDF conversion options here. Remember Nitro Pro keeps track of your last used PDF conversion settings in Word, so it’s worth going and setting them first time so all the PDFs you create from Microsoft Word come out the way you like best — and once set, you’ll be able to create PDF files faster and more consistently.

Chatting with some of the support and product management team earlier in the week, we thought what better way to introduce some of the people behind Nitro Pro than by having them submit one of their favorite tips for getting more out of Nitro Pro. See below for our inaugural ‘top tips’ post. We’ll look to publish more of them in the coming weeks.

Finding out what version of Nitro Pro you have installed

1. Open Nitro Pro.
2. Click on Help ribbon tab.
3. Click Check For Updates.

Copying an image from one PDF to another

If you’re ever in a situation where you need to grab an image from one PDF and copy it to another, here’s how:

1. Select the Edit tool from the Tools panel on any ribbon.
2. Right-click on the image you want to copy, and then click Copy.



3. Now open the PDF you want to put the image in and select the Edit tool.
4. Right-click anywhere on the page and click Paste.

The fastest way to open Nitro PDF Professional

This is for touch typists and keyboard-shortcut enthusiasts. The fastest possible way to open Nitro Pro without ever leaving your keyboard (or having to install special shortcut-related software) is via the Run dialog. Here’s how:

1. Press Windows + R.
2. Type nitropdf.



3. Press Enter.

Speed up text-based reviewing

If you’ve got a large amount of content that needs highlighting, underlining, etc., going back and forth to the review ribbon can be a time consuming process. A much quicker way to speed through the process is via the right-click menu.

1. Select the Copy Text tool.
2. Using the mouse, select the desired text content.
3. Right click and select from Highlight, Underline, and Crossout.



4. Optionally double-click on the text to display the pop-up note.

Happy highlighting!

Using Microsoft ‘Alt’ Hotkeys in Nitro Pro

Pressing Alt on your keyboard will bring up your mapped hotkeys within Nitro PDF Professional, for even quicker access for you keyboard enthusiasts out there. Every item in the ribbon has its own hotkey — just hit Alt to start exploring.