Help on Creating PDF Files
Adobe Acrobat Pro
Adobe Acrobat creates compressed documents that can be viewed over the Internet by opening a link. The file is not viewed as an image but rather as a link that can be opened in a web browser. This program is nice for large, multi-page files such as the Student Handbook. (Most people will not have this program installed on their computer. I will still go through how to use it but you may need to ask someone who does have this program to convert your files for you. Any Website Manager would be happy to do this for you.)
Since we only need to use these programs for web content, we are only going to worry about the toolbars available in other programs such as Microsoft Word and Excel and not learn the program itself.
When we open Microsoft Word or Excel we can select View > Toolbars > PDFMaker 6.0.
Now let’s convert a file to PDF format. This time I will only use an Excel file, but it will work the same for both Excel and Word.
- Open the Excel file Mileage Chart.
- If your toolbars are not already displayed, open them as described above.
- Click the first PDF button on the toolbar.
- You will then be asked to choose a location on your computer to save the file. I chose My Documents.
- Since this document is formatted for printing you may receive this error. Simply Click Yes.
- You will see the following box.
- You should now have a converted PDF! Now all we have to do is insert them into our Web page.
Inserting PDF Files
Now that we have an array of PDF files, let’s include them in our content. For convenience, there should be some previously converted documents on your CD.
Now let’s insert our PDF file! Remember, this will not show up as an image like FlashPaper. PDF files will only show up as a link that can be clicked on and then viewed in the web browser.
- Since this is another form of a hyperlink, we will need to type the text that we want to show up first. In the content area of your Contribute training page, type “Mileage Chart.pdf”.
- Highlight the words “Mileage Chart” but not the “.pdf”. (We don’t need to have the “.pdf” but it does allow users to expect a PDF file to open.)
- On the Menu bar at the top of you screen click Insert > Link > From My Computer…
- You will then see the following dialog box. Click browse.
- You will next see the following dialog box and will need to navigate to the Mileage Chart PDF file on your CD.
- Next, you will return to the previous dialog box with the file path in the text box. Click OK.
- You may be warned about updating the file in the future. Select OK.
- Select Publish and you can now click on the link and open your file.
