Acrobat: Creating custom dynamic stamps | lynda.com

This specific tutorial is a single movie from chapter two of the Acrobat 8 Professional Beyond the Basics course presented by lynda.com author Brian Wood. Watch more at http://www.lynda.com/Acrobat-Professional-8-tutorials/acrobat-8-professional-beyond-the-basics/285-2.html?utm_medium=viral&utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=videoupload-lynda-285-0202

The complete course has a total duration of 9 hours and 36 minutes. Acrobat 8 Professional Beyond the Basics table of contents:

Introduction
1. Creating Articles
2. Collaborating
3. Acrobat Connect
4. Multimedia
5. Creating Forms (Professional Only)
6. LiveCycle Designer (Windows Professional Only)
7. JavaScript and Acrobat
8. Security
9. PDF Optimizer
10. Indexing
11. Accessibility
12. Becoming a Power User
Conclusion

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Closed Caption:

yeah
yeah
I'd like to take your staff knowledge
just a little bit further
you want to show you how to create your
own custom dynamic stamp
I've got GCC and report open from the
previous exercise
if you look I've got the comment markup
toolbar open if you don't have that open
you come in a review , and open it
you look at the stamps right here if you
take a look at the right arrow click on
the right arrow you're going to notice
that there are dynamic stamps on here
now I've got a category called Brian
this is from the essentials title you
may not have that if you look at the
dynamic you're going to notice that our
stamps that actually have like date time
and they pick it up and put whatever the
date and time is now i happen to have a
date i'm here you can also see some of
them have logins as well you can create
your own custom stamp
that's dynamic the pics information up
and put it in there now one quick thing
i want to mention here if you want to
create a custom dynamic stamp that thing
is we've got to create ourselves a form
text field to get this to work
if you're using acrobat standard you
don't have the forms tools available
ok so that may be something you need to
consider before you continue
so we're going to do is we're going to
create ourselves a custom stamp first
step is this is going to use a little
JavaScript to get that dynamic to happen
so I'd like to do is open up a little
JavaScript so we can copy and paste
I've supplied you with just an example
so I've actually got it open right here
now if you go into the exercise files
folder in the collaborate folder
you should see a PDF called fpo
javascript if for some reason you can't
get this open its not working or try
we're going to copy paste this text if
it doesn't work
I've also put a word doc and just a
regular little txt file in there that
you can try and open as well
the whole idea is that we want to copy
paste this JavaScript right here
this actually came from the dynamic
stamps that come with an acrobat
so I'm gonna go my sex selection tool to
select this text right here
i will do a copy
I'm going to go back over the airport
and what we're gonna do now is we're
going to create the stamp
we're going to use that JavaScript i
just copied and put it in the stamp
so come on the arrow create custom stamp
now i can see a picture in here because
i already have it in there
you probably going to see nothing in
here unless this picks up the last stamp
you made
ok so you're probably nothing in here we
go ahead and browse click on browse come
into the collaborate folder and you
should notice that there's an FBO PDF in
there
go ahead and select that and take a look
it should show you this stamp that looks
something like this
you can create this from almost anywhere
it's a picture I saved as a PDF but it
gives you several options several
different file formats you can years
what I did know there's different about
this step is I actually made this an
illustrator I made a little bit bigger
box here so that we can put some custom
information some dynamic information
down here so kind of set it up ahead of
time then I say there is a PDF and I
just set it somewhere
go ahead and click OK what it's going to
do is going to say all right we're going
to create a custom stamp
we can take a category here i'm actually
going to type it directly and you could
also choose to put it in the dynamic
category if you want to but let's say
this is brian's brand on them and come
up that way i can separate these out
you can get the stamp a name I'll call
fpo date there's something like that
download sample is going to make it a
little bit smaller file size some helps
a lot
select image let's go back and pick
another picture going to click ok now we
made a stamp
ok as a matter fact about come out here
take a look i should be able to see
whatever dynamic where we need it and
there's your stamp now the only problem
is it's not dynamic
ok all it does is put the picture on the
page right now so we need to make it
dynamic
so the key is we have to open up the
file that runs this
do that on windows let me do is I'm
going to go to file open so mac and
windows let's go to file open i'm going
to do is I'm going to go to my hard
drive here my computer
i'll give you the path of windows and
i'll tell you what it is a mac so good
at your hard drive
documents and settings your user folder
the application data now here's the
thing this may be hidden so you may need
to go out your operating system and show
these hidden files open up application
data
adobe acrobat slow deep going into
eighth
it depends on versions you have and
we're going to hear
and I should be able to see if you look
at your stamps folder and double-click
on stamps
and we've got a couple different things
in your now you may have one thing in
your one file when you make custom
stamps sometimes what it does is it
actually will make a PDF file here and
this is where draws your stamps from
whenever you make it your own custom
stamps
okay so I'm gonna try this one right
here if you just have one in there just
choose the one that you've got sometimes
it's hard to recognize the names
I usually look at the modification dates
to be able to tell you know which one
this is I'll see you will see if this
one's it going to click open now and on
Mac the path to get to that
go to your user folder or whatever
you're logged in as I usually do Brian
Wood
go into the library folder then go into
the Acrobat user data and then go into a
dough the folder and then go into the
stamps folder and you should be able to
see something similar i see now you're
probably not going to see the same
string of characters letters numbers etc
that's fine okay go ahead and open up
the PDF you see in there and if you've
made other custom stamps you need to
check and make sure it's the right one
so what I'd as soon as I open it up I'll
see probably nothing
I'm gonna go show one page at a time
there's two pages two distinct so go to
the second page and lo and behold
there's my stamp
my point is open the PDF in that folder
until you find the one that's got this
in it
our last thing here is to make a text
field now here's i'm going to i already
have the force toolbar open
what we'll do is this come up to your
toolbars if you right click on them or
control click on a Mac you can come two
forms
you're not going to be able to do this
in standard standard does not have forms
tools inside of himself
as a dynamic stamp you could copy paste
from something else but we will go there
right now we're going to see right here
you've got a text field
I'm going to take my text you I'm going
to draw out a text field out here just
click and drag to draw it out let go
i'm going to name it going to general
here and i haven't covered form filled
yet but we will do that in the the forms
exercise i'll just call this FB oh
that's fine
you know every thing is i go to options
here and align the text to the centre in
the field
ok so line center I'm going to come over
to something called calculating we're
going to use our JavaScript calculates
going to calculate the date-time etc for
us so we use a custom script
click on edit to edit the script we
already copied it back a little while
back there so i'm gonna go ahead and
paste it in there
you give this out of order you can
always go to cancel close
go back into the exercise files folder
open up the FBO javascript again copy
that and then start this again
click OK and if you take a look you
should be able to see it automatically
put the date and time in there for you
i'm going to go ahead and close that up
you're only thing you got to do here now
is to save this file
ok you can do a file save as or save I
literally just usually do a save file
save to a file save i just did it go
ahead and close it up
so this is your stamp files is what
activates going to draw from close up
that file
come back to your annual report or
whatever page you have open
take a look under your stamps you should
build a senior dynamic stamp folder now
it does have it in there so what's
running this is a little text form field
that has a little JavaScript to
calculate the date and time so I'll
choose my stamp move this out of the way
i'll come out to my page click and you
should be able to see the time/date
stamp out there if i go and select it
you can see it
it's an easy way to make a custom
dynamic stamp like I said you may have
run into a hitch if you've got standard
and can't do forms
that's just one thing you gotta look out
for but anyway creating a custom dynamic
step is something that's not too bad and
it saved in here forever for us going to
close this up you don't need to say it
if you don't want to
and next thing where you do is talk
about how to export comments to word
from a PDF file
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