The University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine

Faculty

Creating .pdf's for Note-Taking

Making secure .pdf's students can type into

More and more people bring laptops to class and conferences. It is becoming the norm to take notes on the computer, rather than by hand; as many people can type faster than they can write!

You can create .pdf documents from PowerPoint slides without compromising your intellectual property. Documents can be created that allow the user to use their laptop to type notes directly onto the page, and then save the documents for review.

This procedure requires Acrobat Pro.

Once these settings are created in Acrobat Pro you won’t need to change them, and they will be available to you every time you want to create a ‘type-able .pdf'.

This tutorial assumes you have already created a .pdf from powerpoint, but this process will work on any of .pdf you create.

First, open your .pdf in Acrobat Pro

Click 'padlock' icon

choose 'manage security policies'

choose 'new'

choose 'use passwords'

name the policy (anything you want, like SAM, LAM, etc...)

choose these options:
   -encrypt all document contents = YES
   -check 'use permissions psswd to restrict editing of security settings'
   -require a password to open the doc = NO

Next section 'Permissions'
   -choose a password (and remember it!)
   -printing allowed-(I suggest 150, but that is not gospel).
   -changes allowed-'any except extracting pages'
   -enable copying of text, images, and other contents = NO. this
needs to remain unchecked, or there's no point to doing all this:)
   -enable text access for screen readers-YES it's the law for us.

Next
-you will be asked for the password here

FINISH

Select the 'policy' and 'Apply to Document'

You can now add the typewriter tool for use in Acrobat reader and still
maintain control over content:

Tools>Enable Typewriter Tool in Acrobat Reader

This allows anyone with the free Acrobat Reader to 'type' onto the document.
THEY MUST THEN SAVE THIS DOCUMENT OR THEIR TYPED NOTES WILL BE LOST

Now this 'security policy' is available for any document want to which you wish to apply the typewriter tool.

let me know if you have any questions.

Contact
mflint@uga.edu