3: Working with
Impressions

Creating Your Own Impressions

Impress Pro allows you to create your own impressions for stamping PDF documents. You can save your impressions for subsequent re-use. You can choose to stamp one or more documents with one or more impressions.

This chapter gives full details on all the options available to you for:

q   Creating, customising or updating impressions

q   Stamping PDF files with your impressions

Once a file has been marked with an impression, that stamp will be permanently embedded within that file when that file is saved. You will NOT be able to subsequently remove any impressions from a file once it has been saved.

You can however use Acrobat‘s standard File > Revert option to remove an impression before the relevant file has been saved. (You can also use Impress Pro’s Quick Undo facility if the file was stamped using the Quick Apply facility.)

Options to create and edit impressions are found behind the Impression tab in the Impress Pro dialog box. This tab is the one that is active when you first start Impress Pro, by selecting the Impress Pro option from Acrobat’s Plug-ins menu.

Options available here allow you to:

• Create the text for a new impression or modify the text of an existing one. See Specifying Text for an Impression for details.
• Specify any variable data relating to page numbering and date/time stamps that should appear in your impression. See Including Variable Data for details.
• Specify the appearance of your impression, including its color and font. See Controlling an Impression’s Appearance for
  details.
• Specify the positioning of your impression on the page and whether it should appear as a watermark or not. See Positioning an Impression for details.
• Give details on those pages of your PDF file on which the impression should be stamped. See Specifying Page Ranges for details.

q   Name
your impression and save it for future re-use. SeeNaming an impression for details.

Specifying Text for an Impression

You specify the actual text you want to be stamped as your impression in Impress Pro’s Text field, as in the example below:

Text specified here will be stamped on all the specified pages within your PDF file(s) when you Apply your impression(s).

You can enter any text you want as your impression. A single impression can spread over multiple lines. If you wish to create a multi- ine text impression just use the Enter key (Return key) to create each new line. The line spacing is defined by setting the leading value. The leading value should be the height of the font plus the amount of space that you wish to see between the lines. However, if you wish to apply several lines of text with different attributes, then you should do this by creating several impressions, saving them and then applying them as multiple impressions (using options behind the Apply tab).

Within the text of an impression you can also include some special fields relating to variable data such as page numbering and date/time stamps. See Including Variable Data below for full details. These special fields can be selected using the Fields field and are then inserted automatically into the Text box where they are delimited by the < and > characters to distinguish them from ordinary text.

Including Variable Data

Impressions can include variable data such as:

q   Date and Time Stamps

q   Page Numbers

q   Page Count

q Filename Information

q General File Information

q Serial Numbers

To include any of the available variables within the text string of your impression first choose the type of field you require from the drop down list of available fields shown in the Fields field, (illustrated below) and then click the Add button.

When you have done this, a dialog box containing options that are specific to that particular type of field then displays. These dialog boxes are described in the following sections. From each dialog box you can select further parameters controlling the appearance of that type of data.

Once you have made your selection Impress Pro automatically inserts the special field code associated with that field into the Text field. For example, if you select the Bates Numbering variable, the special field code <BatesPageNumber> will be inserted into the Text field. These special codes are automatically enclosed within <> characters to distinguish them from ordinary text. Some of these special fields, such as the Date/Time ones, can also have parameters associated with them. Parameters are preceded by a % character.

For your information, a full list of these codes is given in Appendix A Setting Special Fields Manually.

When you stamp any files with the selected variable data, the special field codes are replaced with the actual variable data itself, for example the current date and time, and it is this data that is actually stamped, not the field codes themselves.

The following sections describe the options found in all the Variable Data dialog boxes.

Date and Time Stamps

There are a number of different date and time stamps which you can use for stamping date and time information into your PDF documents. When stamping a PDF document with any of the supported date or time stamps Impress Pro reads the date or time only once, and uses the same value for all subsequent impressions while the Impress Pro dialog box remains open. This prevents any inconsistencies arising if you stamp the time more than once during the same session.

When you select the Date and Time option from the drop down list in the Fields field and then click the Add button the Create Date/Time Field dialog box displays. Here, you can select the format in which you want the date/time to be stamped on your documents.

Choose if you want the date/time to be stamped in the Local Time or the Co-ordinated Universal Time by default. Depending on your selection either the <Time> or <TimeUTC> special field codes will be inserted into your impression’s text string when you click OK to quit the Create Date/Time Field dialog. The actual default date/time format in which the date/time will be stamped will depend upon your locale, and will change in line with any changes that might be made to the International settings within your Windows Control Panel.

You can choose any combination of parameters from the pull down list available in the Paramaters field, to further control the format in which the date/time are to be stamped on your document(s). Click Add to select each option you require in turn.

Please refer to the table in Appendix A Setting Special Fields Manually for a description of each of the options available in the Parameters field. It also shows the special field codes associated with each of these options that will be automatically generated by Impress Pro and inserted into the relevant Time field code in your impressions text string when you click OK.

For example, to stamp the following date/time information in Local Time format:

q   Day of Week (in full)

q   Day of Month

q   Month (in full)

q   Year
(with century)

q   Hour
(12 hour clock)

q Minute

q Seconds

q   AM/PM indicator

select the appropriate entries from the Parameter field and click Add. The relevant special field codes will then be automatically displayed in the field next to the Add button, as illustrated below:

The options you select here, together with any punctuation you add to the string, will all be inserted into the Text field in the Impress Pro dialog box after you have clicked OK in the Create Date/Time dialog box. Impress Pro will automatically enclose the special field code within the special field delimiter characters, < > as shown below.

If you were to stamp a PDF document with this particular impression the date/time would appear in the format:

Monday 26 September 2005

10:48:10
AM

Page Numbering

The Create Page Numbering Field dialog box displays when you select the Page Number option from the Fields field and then click the Add button.

Here you can specify the number at which page numbering is to commence into the Start Page Number field. By default page numbering will commence from 1.

Setting the page number option will generate the special field code <PageNumber> (plus any appropriate parameter) and   inset it into your text string.

You can also specify that pages are to be numbered in accordance with either the Roman numerals system or the Bates Numbering system, by enabling either the Roman Numbering or the Use Bates Numbering check box.

Bates numbers are commonly used in legal documents and consist of six characters, up to a maximum of 999999. For example page 1 would be 000001 when using Bates numbering.

You can also specify that pages are to be numbered using the Roman Numbering system, by enabling the Use Roman Numbering check box. Roman Numerals are commonly used in introductory type material or document Prefaces. Impress Pro can only represent numbers from 1-3999 in Roman Numerals, as most fonts do not support the extra line on top of the characters that would be required to represent larger numbers.

If you use this feature with multiple documents, the page numbering for each new document will re-start from the page number specified here (typically 1). For example, if stamping page numbers onto three documents, the first having 250 pages, the second 22 pages and the third 58 pages when Start Page Number is set to 1 (the default) the pages in the 250 page document will be numbered 1 to 250, those in the 22 page document will be numbered 1 to 22 while those in the 58 page document will be numbered 1 to 58. However, it is possible to stamp multiple documents with one unbroken page numbering sequence by using the Serial Number field. In this example, the 250 page document would still be numbered 1 to 250 (as it is the first document to be stamped) but the 22 page document (the second document) would be stamped with the page numbers 251 to 272, while the 58 page document would be stamped 273 to 330 to give an unbroken numbering sequence across the three different documents. See the section Serial Number below for further details.

It is also possible to offset page numbering using this feature, so page 1 is stamped on a page that is not the first page in the file. To do this, enter a negative number into the Start Page Number field. Because the physical page numbering of PDF files starts from 0 this number must be 2 out. Then enter the physical page on which page 1 should be stamped into the Specified Pages Only radio button in the Page Range field. For example, to stamp page number 1 onto physical page 10 enter an offset of -8 into the Start Page Number field and then enter 10 into the Specified Pages Only field in Page Range. This will stamp 1 onto page 10, 2 onto page 11 and so on to the end of the file.

Page Count

You can also include a page count within your impression. This is commonly combined with page numbering information, and the same page numbering formats are supported for page counts as they are for page numbers.

To set the page count, select the Page Count option in the drop down list of fields in the Fields field and then click the Add button. The Create Page Count Field dialog box will then
display.

Here you can enter the page offset to be used for the page count, starting from page 1 by default. You can also specify if you want to use either Bates numbering or Roman numerals in the page count, for consistency with the style of the page numbers that have been selected in the Page Numbering field.

You can combine the PageCount and Page Number variables. For example the following mixture of actual text and special fields:

would use the Bates numbering system to stamp your PDF files with page number and page count information in the form:

Page 000001 of 000010

File Name

You can stamp your PDF file with file name information in any of the following formats:

q   File name only (without any extension), for example MyDocument

q   File name with extension, for example MyDocument.pdf

q   File name with extension and including full path name, for example, c:\MyFiles\MyDocument.pdf

To stamp file name information select the File Name option from the Fields field to display the File Name Field dialog. This will look something like the following:

Simply select the radio button corresponding
to the option you require and click OK.

General File Information Fields

You can stamp your PDF file with the following general file information:

q   Title

q Subject

q Author

q Keywords

To specify the file information you require select the General File Information option from the Fields field to display the General Information Fields dialog:

Simply select the radio button corresponding to the option you require and click OK.

Serial Number

You can stamp a serial number onto your PDF file(s) using Impress Pro. In this context, a serial number is a user-defined variable for storing numbers. A serial number could be a traditional serial number, or alternatively it could be something like revision numbers or version numbers. This feature can also be used to stamp an unbroken sequence of page numbers across multiple files, (unlike Impress Pro’s standard Page Number variable which stamps multiple files individually with their own sequence of numbers). See below for details on how to do this. Each time the serial number is used it is automatically incremented by one. Its current value is automatically shown as the next number in the sequence if you subsequently re-use the same sequencing set.

To set serial numbers, select the Serial Number option in the Fields field to display the Create Serial Number Field dialog.

Here you can set a number of options to customise the appearance of serial numbers in your documents:

You can Save this numbering sequence to retrieve for future re-use if you wish.

It is also possible add serial numbering information sequentially across a number of files.

To stamp one numbering sequence across multiple documents:

1. Select the Serial Number option from the Fields field in Impress Pro.

2. Enter a Serial Number Name for this numbering sequence, for example, Naming Sequence 1, and then enter 1 in the Current Value field to start this particular sequence from 1.
.

3. Next, check the Use Leading Zeros checkbox to insert leading zeros into the serial numbers and enter 10 in the Field Width box to allow serial numbers of up to 10 digits to be calculated for this particular serial numbering sequence.

4. Click Save to save this sequence.

5. Click OK to return to the main Impress Pro dialog box where the Serial Number code you just created will now appear in the Text to Apply field.

6. Type Page followed by space immediately before this special code. This will insert the word Page before each number as it is stamped onto each page in the appropriate documents.

7. Enter a name for this numbering sequence in the Name field and then click Save.

8.     Next. click the Apply tab and then select the Current Impression radio button.

The Impress Pro dialog box should now look as follows:

9.     Next you need to enter the names of the files you wish to stamp with your chosen impression. For example you could select four of your
testfiles: testfile6.pdf, testfile7.pdf, testfile8.pdf and testfile9.pdf.

10.  The Impress Pro dialog should now look something like the following:

11.  Files will be stamped in the order in which they appear in this list. Use the Up and Down buttons to rearrange the files into the correct order, in this case testfile6 through testfile9 in numerical order.

12.  Click Apply to stamp page numbers onto all four files starting with Page 1 and continuing with no break in the sequence until the last page in the last file is reached. For example, if all files have 10 pages each and you stamp in the order testfile6, testfile7 testfile8 and finally testfile9, then the pages in testfile6 will be stamped Page 1 to Page 10, those in testfile7 will be stamped Page 11 to Page 20, those in testfile8 will be stamped Page 21 to Page 30, while those in testfile9 will be stamped Page 31 to Page 40.

Any page numbering information already found within any of the files stamped with the new numbering sequence will be retained. However, an Acrobat plug-in, MaskIt is available for purchase from the Mapsoft web site which allows you to hide any existing page numbering information already found in any of the files before stamping the new numbers.

Controlling an Impressions Appearance

Options in the Font and Color fields control the appearance of your impression.

Font

Options in the Font field control the font settings to be used for your impression.

Any installed font available on your system can be used in an impression: these appear in black in the Face field. In addition any of Acrobats base fonts can also be used in an impression: these appear in red in the Face field. If you select a font that is available on your system but is not one of the ones already found within the file to be stamped, that font will be embedded into that file upon stamping that impression. Acrobats base fonts do not need to be embedded into the PDF file as they are always provided with Acrobat

Color

The Color field allows you to set the color of your impression.

Make your selection from the drop-down list associated with this field.

Customised Colors

If you choose one of the three Custom colors, (Gray, R,G,B or C,M,Y,K) you can type in the individual gray, red/green/blue, or cyan/magenta/yellow/black values into the box at the foot of the Color field. Custom values should be in the range 0.00 to 1.00 and commas must separate each individual entry.

Additionally, if setting the RGB custom color you can also enter the value you want using a color palette. To do so select the Custom (R,G,B) option from the Color field and then click the button to display the following standard color dialog from where you can make your selection.

Similarly you can choose a color using the CMYK color scheme. To do so select the Custom (C,M,Y,K) option and then click the button to display the following color dialog from where you can make your selection by moving the sliders to create the exact color you wish to use.

You can also select the exact shade of Gray you require from the following dialog box rather than entering the value manually. Clicking the button with the Custom (Gray) option selected displays the dialog box shown below. Move the slide to select the shade of gray required.

Positioning an Impression

Options in the Position, Justification and Layer fields control where an impression is stamped on a page, and whether it appears above the existing text or as a watermark.

Justification

The Justification field controls the alignment of an impression.

It can be aligned in one of three ways horizontally, Left, Centre or Right in relation to the Horizontal (X) co-ordinate specified in the Position field. This co-ordinate refers to the position of the text in relation to the bottom left/centre/right of an impression to the top left or bottom left corner of the page (see Positioned Exactly).

Layers

The Layer field controls whether the
impression is stamped on the foreground or the
background of the specified page(s).

Position

The Position field controls the horizontal and vertical positioning of the impression within a page, and the angle at which it displays.

Positioned Diagonally

If you select either the Diagonal from top left or Diagonal from bottom left options your impression is stamped diagonally across the page/clipping area from the top or bottom left of your page/clipping area depending on the option selected. Impress Pro will automatically work out the necessary co-ordinates to mark your impression diagonally from the bottom left or top left of a page/clipping area (depending on your selection) as in the following example:

Impressions stamped using either of these two options will always be positioned across the centre of the page/clipping area. The angle of such impressions will differ depending on the actual page size or clipping area size. This feature is particularly useful for files that contain pages of differing sizes or orientation.

Positioned Exactly

If you prefer you can pin-point the exact position and angle at which your impression is to be stamped by using the Custom options.

The Units field controls the unit of measurement to be used in calculating the positioning of impressions. Their position can be calculated in inches, points or centimetres.

Clipping Area

Check the Use Clipping area check box if impressions are to be positioned by a documents clipping area rather than its actual size. The clipping area is the area that is shown on the screen rather than the actual media size of the document (e.g. Letter or A4). It is useful to use the clipping area rather than the media area if, for example, you have a document that has been cropped and does not fill the media size of the paper, but you want the impression to be stamped in relation to the cropped area rather than the media area.

The cropped area could be positioned anywhere on the media so it may be useful for the co-ordinates of the impression to be calculated separately from the co-ordinates of the media.

The following diagrams show the effect of using the clipping area or of not using it. Images 1 and 2 show a document that has been stamped when the Use Clipping
Area option has NOT been selected.

Images 3 and 4 show the same document when it has been stamped with the Use Clipping Area option
selected.

3Printed version

4 Screen version

Page Rotations

The Account for Page Rotations check box controls whether Impress Pro compensates for any rotated pages within the PDF file when stamping impressions on that file. When this check box is checked (which is the default setting) Impress Pro automatically rotates impressions on rotated pages to ensure they appear the right way up. For example, pages could have been scanned upside down on a
scanner so resulting in pages in the PDF file that have been rotated through 180. If this check box was not checked, impressions intended for the bottom of a page would be stamped upside down and at the top of the page. However, with this check box checked, impressions will be rotated by 180 so they will appear the right way up and will be positioned in the right place on the page.

This setting compensates for pages that have been rotated by 90 clockwise, 90 anti-clockwise and 180 clockwise. It may not always be obvious that pages have been rotated, which is why this feature is set on by default.

Specifying Page Ranges

The Page Range and Page Spread fields control which pages are stamped with your impression.

Page Range

You can choose to mark the whole of your PDF document(s) with your impression(s), just the current page, or selected pages. Choose the All Pages option to stamp all the pages within the PDF file, the Current button to stamp the current page, or the Specified Pages Only option to stamp selected pages only. If you select the Specified Pages Only option you can then type the numbers of the pages you want to mark with the impression into the text box at the foot of this field.

You can mark non-contiguous pages, and/or ranges of pages with your impression. To mark individual non-contiguous pages type the page numbers of the relevant pages, separating each by a comma. For example to mark pages 6, 12 and 15 type:

6, 12, 15

You can also specify a range of pages to be marked with your impression. To do this type the starting and ending numbers in the range, separated by a hyphen. For example to mark pages 3 through 19 of your document type:

3-19

If you omit the first number in the range, the first page of the document is assumed. Similarly if you omit the last number the final page of the document is assumed.

Thus if you were to enter:

3-

All pages from page 3 onwards would be marked.

If you were to enter:

-15

Pages 1 through 15 would be marked.

You can specify both non-contiguous pages and ranges of pages at the same time. For example to mark pages 3, 8, 9, 10, 14, and 18 type:

3, 8-10, 14, 18

Specified ranges can overlap if you so wish. For example it is perfectly possible to enter two overlapping ranges such as:

5-10, 7-12

Once you’ve typed in a page range definition, if you subsequently click the All Pages button the page range definition is retained so making it easy to go back to it should this be required.

Page Spread

This option specifies the page spread (of pages lying within the specified page range) to be marked with the impression.

Saving an Impression

To save a new stamp/impression, simply enter a name for it into the Name field, then click the Save button.

You do not have to save an impression before using it to stamp a document, but you will not be able to re-use it in another session of Impress Pro unless you do so.

You can delete any existing Impress Pro impressions by selecting the appropriate one from the drop-down list in the Name field and then clicking the Delete button.

Applying Impressions

If stamping a single impression onto your current document the easiest way to actually apply the impression is by using the Quick Apply button located behind the Impression tab.

This then gives you the option of using the Quick Undo button to remove that impression from your file should the impression not have the effect that you wished. The Quick Undo facility is only available for use on the current file, which must have been stamped using Impress Pros Quick Apply facility during the current Impress Pro session. It cannot be used if stamping multiple files. However, it can be used to undo more than one impression in the current file, provided each was applied in the current session of Impress Pro. Each time you select the Quick Undo button, the previously applied impression will be removed in reverse chronological order.

However, the Quick Apply function is only available for stamping one impression onto the current file. If stamping multiple impressions onto a file, or working with more than one file at a time, you will need to use options behind the Apply tab.

Here you can select the documents and/or impressions you wish to work with. The options available here are described in the following sections.

Selecting Impressions

You can choose to stamp the selected document(s) with:

q   The current impression
Select the Current Impression radio button to stamp the selected PDF file(s) with the current impression.

q Multiple impressions
Select the Selected Impressions radio button to stamp multiple impressions on the selected file(s). See below for details.

q   No impressions
Select the None radio button if you want to use Impress Pro just to set document attributes without stamping any impression(s). See Chapter 4 Setting Document Attributes for details.

Selecting Multiple Impressions

Selecting the Selected Impressions radio button activates the To be applied and Not to be applied fields, allowing you to select those impressions with which you wish your document(s) to be stamped.

All the currently available impressions are listed in the Not to be applied field as in the example below.

Click the name of an impression you require in the Not to be applied field and then click the left-facing arrow located between this field and the To be applied field

This then moves the selected impression to the To be applied field. Simply repeat for each impression you require. If you accidentally select the wrong impression, then select that impression in the To be applied field and click the right facing arrow located next to that field to

move that impression back to the Not to be applied field.

 Selecting Documents

The options in the Documents group control which documents and directories your changes will affect. You can choose to apply your impression to either:

q   The current document
The Current document option (the
default) stamps the currently open PDF document with the selected
impression(s).

q Multiple documents
The Multiple documents option allows you to specify multiple documents to be stamped with your selected impression(s). See below for details.

Selecting Multiple Documents

Selecting the Multiple documents option enables further options that allow you to specify the names of those documents on which your selected impression(s) should be stamped.

There are a number of ways in which you can enter the file names, use:

q Drag and Drop to select the relevant files.

q   the Browse button to select the files.

q   The Directory button to select a complete directory. The selected impression(s) will be stamped on all the PDF files (with the extension .PDF) in that directory.

q   Use the From List button to select all the files or directories from a list. The file can be comma or line delimited.

Regardless of the method you used to select the appropriate files, these files will then be listed in the Impress Pro dialog box as illustrated below:

You can re-order the list of files by using the Up and Down buttons. Simply select one of the file entries shown in the list and then select either the Up or Down button as appropriate to move that file up or down the list. Repeat until the files are shown in the order in the correct order. This feature is particularly useful when stamping serial numbers across multiple files.

You can also set the Optimise and Recurse to Subfolders options as required.

You can also save a list of files for use with another impression by selecting the Create List button. This allows you to output the file list currently shown within Impress Pros dialog box to a text file. On selecting the Create List button a dialog box appears from where you can specify the name and location of this text file. You could then re-import this file list using the From List button whenever you wished to do so

4: Setting Document Attributes

Document Attributes

In addition to offering support for stamping text and images onto PDF files, Impress Pro can also be used to set various standard document attributes for your output PDF files, namely:

q Document information about a PDF file Controlled by options behind the Info tab in Impress Pro‘s dialog box.

q Default appearance of PDF files when they initially open Controlled by options behind the Open tab in Impress Pro’s dialog box.

q Standard security options for PDF files Controlled by options behind the Security tab in Impress Pro’s dialog box.

You can set any (or all) of the above document attributes when stamping a file with an impression. However, these attributes can also be set completely independently from marking an impression, so giving you the ability to use Impress Pro just for setting document attributes. If you do make changes to any of these options a tick (check mark) will appear next to the relevant tab in the Impress Pro dialog to indicate changes have been made.

You have the option to set the default entries for any of the fields located behind any of these tabs. This is particularly useful if you always enter the same information into any of these tabs: saving your own particular configuration for that tab will save you time.

As is the case when using Impress Pro for marking impressions, you can set document attributes for multiple documents.

Setting Document Information

You can use Impress Pro to set document information pertaining to your PDF document(s) by using options available behind the Info tab in the Impress Pro dialog box.

Here you can set or change the standard document information fields listed below:

q   Title

q Subject

q Author

q Keyword

q Index

q   Base URL

To set any information you enter as the default option for a particular field, simply click the Save as Default button when you have made your entries. Any entries set as default ones will be set automatically each time you use Impress Pro. (A tick (check mark) will appear next to the Info tab each time you open Impress Pro to remind you that some of the options behind that tab have been pre-set.)

The Save as Default functionality is also available for the Open and Security tabs.

You can use the Reset to Default button to re-set any fields back to their default setting during an Impress Pro session. You can also click the Current button to set the options to be the same as those currently set for the currently open document.

To set document information for the current document:

1. Open the PDF document whose document information properties you wish to set.

2. Select Plug-Ins > Impress Pro… within Acrobat to display the Impress Pro dialog box.

3. Click the Info tab.

4. Click the check boxes next to any of the options you wish to change and insert your new text. For example you might want to set a documents name or the name of its author.

The cross next to the Info tab has now changed to a tick (check mark) to indicate you have made changes in this area

If attaching an Index
to your PDF document you can use the Browse button to search for the index
you require.

5.
Optionally, clicking
the Save as Default button will save
any entries you have just made as the default settings for those particular
fields.

6.
Click the Apply tab.

7.
Click the None option, if you are not actually
stamping any impression followed by the Apply button to apply your changes.

Controlling a
Document’s Appearance

You can use Impress Pro
to change the default appearance of PDF file(s) when they are opened. To do
this you use options available behind the Open tab in the Impress Pro dialog box.

The following options are available for selection.

The default settings referred to here are those that have been pre-set for Impress Pro. You can change any of these default settings if you wish by clicking the Save as Default button at the foot of this dialog once you have made your changes.

To set the appearance of the current document:

1.  Open the PDF document whose appearance you want to change.

2. Select Plug-Ins > Impress Pro… from within Acrobat, to display the Impress Pro dialog box.

3. Click the Open tab.

4. Select the options you require from the drop-down lists associated with the View, Magnification and/or Page Layout fields.

The cross next to the Open tab has now changed to a tick (check mark) to indicate you have made changes in this area.

5. Enter the page number of the first page you wish to be displayed if it is anything other than the first page in your document in the Page number field.

6. Check those options from the Window options group that you wish to set.

7. Check those options from the User interface options that you wish to set.

8. Optionally, clicking the Save as Default button will save any entries you have just made as the default settings for those particular fields.

9. Click the Apply tab, followed by the Apply button. (You will obviously have to save, close down and open up the file to see the result.)

You can specify the default appearance of multiple PDF documents not just one.

Setting Security Options

You can set standard security options for your PDF document(s) using Impress Pro. You do this using options behind the Security tab in the Impress Pro dialog.

Here you can set the same security information as you can within Acrobat, so controlling access to your document(s). If a file already has a security password set you must enter the current password into the Password field. If you do not, any new passwords you set will not take effect. If a security password has been set and you do not know what it is, you will not be able to change the documents security settings. If a document has been set up so as not to allow a document to be changed, you will not be able to use Impress Pro to stamp that document without the correct security password.

To set security options for the current document:

1. Open the PDF document for which you wish to set security options.

2. Select Plug-Ins > Impress Pro… within Acrobat to display the Impress Pro dialog box.

3. Click the Security tab.

4. Check the Change security settings check box if you want to set a password for either opening the document or changing any of its security options.

5. Enter your required passwords into the Open the document and/or Change security options fields.

The cross next to the Security tab has now changed to a tick (check mark) to indicate you have made changes in this area.

6. Check any of the options you require in the Do not allow group.

7. Optionally, clicking the Save as Default button will save any entries you have just made as the default settings for those particular fields.

8. Click the Apply tab.

9. Click the None button if using Impress Pro to simply set security information.

10.   Click the Apply button.

11.   You are asked to re-enter the password(s) you just set for verification purposes.

12.   Re-enter the appropriate password(s) and click OK.

Once you have saved your PDF files with security settings, it will not be possible to open them and/or change the specified security options unless the correct password is known.

Security options can be set for multiple files, in which case all files opened in the same batch must have the same security settings.

If you enter a security password, leave the security options fields empty, and apply and save the document, any security information that was previously set in that document will be removed.

5: Frequently Asked Questions

FAQs

Why do some watermarks not appear?

Some PDF files are created with a white background behind the text. Also foreground images may obscure the whole background of the page.This is particularly true when PDF files are created from scans.In these situations outlined text can be used in the foreground. Alternatively, Impress Pro’s transparency feature can also be used when using Acrobat 5 and above.

Why does text sometimes disappear from the top and bottom of variable sized pages in a PDF file?

When using variable sized pages is important to ensure that the calculations for the positioning of impression are done either from the top, bottom, left or right of the page. The PDF co-ordinate system works from the bottom left-hand corner of the page. For this reason footers should be calculated from the bottom and headers should be calculated from the top.

Is it possible to use drag-and-drop to the file window in the Apply tab?

Impress Pro supports the drag-and-drop selection of files from the Windows Explorer.

Is it possible to use the document information, security options and open defaults without applying an impression?

Yes it is. Just select None in the Apply tab and then run Impress Pro.

Is possible to apply multiple lines of text at once?

Impress Pro supports multiple lines in a single impression. In the text entry field just use the enter key (return key) to create a new line. The line spacing is defined by setting line spacing. The line spacing value should be the height of the font plus the amount of space that you wish to see between the lines. If you wish to apply several lines of text with different attributes, then you should do this by creating several impressions, saving them and then applying multiple impressions in the Apply tab.

Does Impress Pro support legal page numbering with leading zeros?

Version 2.0 of Impress Pro introduced support for Bates page numbering. This is in the form 000001 where any number up to 6 digits is preceded by zeros. So, for example, page number 1000 would be written as 001000 when using this numbering system. If you need to vary the width of this field then you can do so using the serial numbering feature.

Does Impress Pro make changes to the security, Open defaults and Information Fields in my PDF files?

Changes are ONLY made to these settings if specifically set by the user. Because Impress Pro supports batches of PDF files these other features have been added to the product to provide common functions that are often applied to PDF files.

A: Setting Special Fields Manually

Special Fields

In earlier versions of Impress Pro the special field codes relating to variable data such as page numbering, page count and date/time information etc, could only be set manually. In the latest version of Impress Pro they can now be set automatically via Impress Pros user interface. This is now the recommended method for setting variable data. See Including Variable Data in Chapter 3: Working with Impressions for details. However, for consistency with earlier versions of Impress Pro support for setting these fields manually remains and thus details on how to do this are given below.

Setting Special Fields Manually

Special fields can be included in the Text field in the Impress Pro dialog box for either multiple or single documents. Such fields must be delimited by the < and > characters within your text, which identifies them as special fields:

<field>

Only pre-determined entries are permitted, these are all described in this section. In addition, some of the special fields can also be used in conjunction with parameters, in which case they have the format:

<field:parameter(s)>

When variable data is set via the options found in the Fields field (which is the recommended method), Impress Pro automatically generates the appropriate field code(s) for you.

Date and Time Stamps

The following fields are supported for stamping your PDF file with date and/or time information.

You can specify any of the parameters shown in the table below with any of the above date and time fields.

Page Numbering

The following fields are supported for stamping your PDF file with page numbering information.

Page Count

The following field is supported for stamping your PDF file with page count information.

File Name

The following fields are supported for stamping your PDF file with the file name information.

Information Fields

The following fields are supported for stamping your PDF file with the following PDF document information.