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SUMMARY: How to use Adobe Acrobat
to save picture-perfect digital copies of estimates, invoices,
and other Clients & Profits reports.
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Without an application like Adobe Acrobat,
it wouldn't be possible to save accurately-rendered electronic copies
of Clients & Profits estimates, invoices, orders, statements,
and management reports. Adobe Acrobat lets you print any report from
Clients & Profits (or any program) to disk as a fully-formatted
digital document. These documents (called "pdf" files, which stands
for "portable document format") can be stored on a user's hard drive,
the shop's file server, or a client's web server -- without losing
any of the report's formatting.
Acrobat PDF files can be attached to e-mails and sent to clients or
vendors, who can read and print them using the Adobe Acrobat Reader
application. Acrobat Reader is a free program that's included with
Microsoft Windows and the Mac OS as well as with Netscape and Internet
Explorer. (It is also available free for downloading from the Adobe
web site.) The PDF documents created from Clients & Profits are
cross-platform, so can be read and printed by anyone using Acrobat
Reader regardless of the computer they're using. Since Acrobat documents
include imbedded fonts, your clients won't have problems printing
them to look exactly as you print them at the office.
This tech note describes the steps needed to create
Acrobat files from Clients & Profits. It also
contains a link to a step-by-step tutorial that
illustrates the process. THE CLIENTS & PROFITS
HELPDESK DOES NOT PROVIDE TECHNICAL SUPPORT FOR ADOBE
ACROBAT. Installing Adobe Acrobat can be technical, so
you should have access to an computer expert who is
familiar with printers, fonts, and operating systems.
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Why not just export
reports? Although Clients & Profits
provides an option to export any report to disk
(i.e., to your hard disk or file server), this
option is only useful for transferring data to
spreadsheets or databases. When a report is
printed to disk, a tab-delimited text file is
created containing the report's content. This
text file is formatted in a row-and-column
layout to make it easy to open and customize in
Excel. If this text file is opened in a word
processor, it'll have no lines, fonts, graphics,
margins, tabs, or other formatting. This makes
them unsuitable for attaching to e-mail.
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Printing quality with Acrobat and
Clients & Profits
Acrobat PDF files print reliably and accurate on any PostScript laser
printer and reasonably well on non-PostScript ink-jet printers. But
the variety of printing devices that include Adobe PostScript 3 technology
(the most recent version of the standard page-description language)
take full advantage of PDF files to produce the most reliably precise,
highest-quality output. Adobe's PDF files have the same imaging capabilities
as Adobe PostScript software because PDF is based on the PostScript
language. This assures you the highest level of compatibility when
you print PDF files on Adobe PostScript printers.
What about fonts? When you create a PDF file, the PDF Writer driver
provides an option to embed fonts within the document. Embedding fonts
guarantees that the reader of the PDF will be able to view the original,
even if they don't have the fonts installed on their system.
What about graphics? If you are printing a
document with an embedded graphic from C&P, make sure you set
the Acrobat option to compress graphics to a minimum. The more compression
the lower quality will be the printed image. Turn the compression
of graphics off preferably. The file size will be larger, but in the
high bandwidth environment we have today, sending a larger file electronically
isn't a problem.
Getting started with Adobe Acrobat
To create Acrobat PDF files from Clients & Profits, you'll need
to purchase and install Acrobat Acrobat on every PC or Mac that will
use it. Adobe Acrobat installs a printer driver, called the PDF Writer,
into your Printers control panel (in Windows) or your Chooser (on
an Mac). You'll select this printer driver every time you want to
create a PDF file from Clients & Profits (much like choosing a
fax driver if you want to fax a report). Any version of Adobe Acrobat
will create accurate files from Clients & Profits. Keep in mind,
that Adobe Acrobat often comes bundled with other Adobe products,
so your office may already have a copy of it. Adobe Acrobat version
5 no longer includes the PDF Writer printer driver for the Mac (it
still does for the PC). See the instructions below on how to create
a PDF without PDF Writer for the Mac.
Those with current Macintosh computers using OS 9
or later may not need to purchase Adobe Acrobat to create PDF files.
First check your system to see if you already have the ability to
create PDF files. When printing a report, in the first print dialog
window, click on the options tab (defaults to "General")
and choose "Save as File". Under the Format tab on the "Save
as File" window, choose Acrobat PDF. As well, at the top right
of this window switch the Destination tab to "File" and
click the option to "Embed Fonts" in the middle of the window.
Then click Save (it will no longer say Print because you changed the
Destination to "File"). This is how you have to create a
PDF file on a Mac with Acrobat version 5. If you don't have the option
under the Format tab to save as Acrobat PDF, then this Mac needs Adobe
Acrobat installed on it to save a file as a PDF.
Purchasing Adobe Acrobat will give you additional features (and it
must be purchased to create PDF files on a PC), such as the ability
to edit any PDF file as one would edit a word processing document.
As well, you can add a password to your PDF files to prevent others
with Adobe Acrobat from editing the files you send them. If you want
the ability to add digital signatures to PDF files you e-mail others,
then you will need to purchase Adobe Acrobat AND your client will
need to, at a minimum, purchase Adobe Acrobat Approval ($40 compared
to the $250 to buy the full version of Adobe Acrobat). If you want
your clients to have the ability to fully edit the text in the PDF
files you send them, then they will need to purchase the full version
of Adobe Acrobat. As mentioned above, if you only need to open and
print PDF files, then you only need Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is
free.
How to create Acrobat PDF files from
Clients & Profits reports
Creating PDF files from Clients & Profits is nearly as easy as
printing on paper, and involves only a few extra steps. The hardest
thing about creating PDF files is choosing a name, since each estimate,
invoice, or report you save will have its own unique file name (such
as, JOB101EST.PDF). You can choose any kind of name for your Acrobat
files, but they all must end with .PDF. The steps you'll take depend
on whether you're using a Windows-based PC or a Mac and whether your
computer supports the Acrobat PDF Writer printer driver. See instructions
above on how to print a PDF from a Mac with Acrobat
version 5 which no longer includes the PDF Writer printer driver for
the Mac.
To create a PDF file from Clients & Profits in Windows
(click here for
a step-by-step tutorial):
1 Open Clients & Profits, then print an estimate, invoice,
statement, or report as usual.
2 From the Clients & Profits "print report" window, be
sure the "Printer" print-to to option is selected.
3 From Clients & Profits, click the Print button.
4 When the Print Setup dialog box appears, select "Adobe PDFWriter"
from the pull-down dialog menu.
5 Click OK.
6 When prompted, name the PDF then save it to your hard drive.
To create a PDF file from Clients & Profits on a Macintosh
(click here for
a step-by-step tutorial):
1 Open the Mac's Chooser, then select the "Acrobat" printer
driver.
2 Open Clients & Profits, then print an estimate, invoice,
statement, or report as usual.
3 From the Clients & Profits "print report" window, be
sure the "Printer" print-to to option is selected.
4 From Clients & Profits, click the Print button.
5 When prompted, name your PDF file and save it to your hard
drive.
Using Acrobat Distiller instead of the PDF Writer printer driver
The Acrobat Distiller will convert a printed PostScript file into
a PDF file, but it is more complicated to use. The PDF Writer is faster
and works just like printing to any other printer. In some cases,
the PDF Writer can have problems with charts and graphs, as well as
some large documents. If this happens, you can instead save your Clients
& Profits reports to disk as a PostScript file then convert it
to PDF with the Acrobat Distiller. (View a step-by-step tutorial about
creating PDFs from Clients & Profits reports with the Acrobat
Distiller using Windows
or Macintosh .)
Acrobat version 5 and the Mac (a faster
way to create your PDF)
Unfortunately, Adobe decided to remove the PDF Writer printer driver
from the Mac version of Adobe Acrobat version 5. It's still included
for the PC. Above are instructions on how to create
a PDF from a Mac without the PDF Writer printer driver.
However, there is a way to create your PDF's
more quickly with Acrobat version 5 on the Mac. It utilizes a combination
of using the AdobePS printer driver and Acrobat Distiller. After installing
Acrobat on the Mac it should install the AdobePS printer driver. This
printer driver creates a PostScript file of the printed report automatically
(instead of having to save a PostScript file of the printed report
via the print dialog windows). Next, select the Chooser under the
Apple Menu and click on the AdobePS driver. Then select your laser
printer to the right and click Setup or Create. You should be presented
with a dialog window where one of the options is to Select PPD (this
is short for PostScript Printer Description - it defines the capabilities
of your printer). After clicking on Select PPD you should see a list
of PPD's. One should say Acrobat Distiller. Select that and choose
Open, then OK on the next window. The AdobePS driver is now setup
to create the PostScript file and process it into a PDF file via Acrobat
Distiller (it will automatically launch Distiller if it's not already
open and process the file).
Once the AdobePS printer driver is setup,
then all that is left for your users when printing a report from C&P
(or any other program) is to select the AdobePS printer. In the first
print dialog window you will have a Printer option pulldown tab (a
standard feature of the Mac OS) where you can select a different printer
than your default printer. Select the AdobePS printer to create a
PDF file. You can see this works much like the PDF Writer regarding
ease of use, just using a different method to create the PDF file.
Where PDF Writer does the processing, in this case a PostScript file
is created and Distiller does the processing all in one step.
