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How to Use Adobe Acrobat Pro - Complete Beginner's Guide
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Jun 10, 2024
In this video, you'll receive a complete beginner's guide on how to use Adobe Acrobat Pro, the industry-standard software for creating, editing, and managing PDF documents. The tutorial covers essential features such as creating PDFs from various file formats, editing text and images, adding annotations and comments, and securing your documents with passwords and permissions. Additionally, you'll learn how to combine multiple files into a single PDF, fill and sign forms electronically, and utilize OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to make scanned documents searchable and editable. Whether you're new to Acrobat Pro or looking to enhance your PDF management skills, this video provides a comprehensive overview to get you started.
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Adobe Acrobat Pro is the most complete software when it comes to creating and editing PDFs
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and it's by the same company that invented the PDF file format over 30 years ago
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And with Acrobat Pro, you get access to 30 different types of tools for PDFs
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so you could do things like editing and organizing pages, adding different media types
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creating forms. You could also convert PDFs to different file types. You could compress PDFs to make them a lot easier to email
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It makes it much, much easier to sign an initial, any type of PDFs. or request signature and you could protect your PDFs with a password and you could quickly print them or share them here with a link
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So in this video I'll cover all those features and I'll point out a couple of different advanced ones
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including this new AI assistant that lets you interact with your PDFs and get a quick summary too
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If you don't have Adobe Acrobat Pro, this is different than Adobe Acrobat
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You could get it from the Adobe website here that a link below. They do have a free trial and Adobe Acrobat Pro is a paid subscription
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from Adobe. So you do need access to this, but they do have a free trial if you just want to try it out
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And there is a standard version. This is going to have limited options compared to what I'm going to show you
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A lot of the tools that I'm going to show you are not going to be here. But it does have the basics that I'll cover
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So editing, getting signature, adding protection with a password, those are available in the standard version
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But I'm going to cover Adobe Acrobat Pro in this video. Now, when you install the app is available for PC and for Mac
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You're going to land here on this page. This is going to show any recent files
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deleted all my recent files here, but they'll appear here one at a time based on the last time
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you opened it. But what I want to show you are these tools over here. So if you go to see all
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tools right on top, it's going to bring you here to the tools page. They move this around from time
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to time. So select an icon that takes you here to the tools page. And here you could search or just
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explore the different tools there, broken up into different categories. So usually editing the PDF or
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creating one from scratch is where you want to start. So I'll show you, creating which also lets you edit, but most of the time you want to edit, fill out a form
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get a signature, things like that. So let's go ahead and create a PDF from here. And when you
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select that option, it's going to bring you to this page. You're going to spend a lot of time here
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in Acrobat. You could select from a single file. So this could be an image, for example, or it could be
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a word doc or an Excel sheet or just a regular text file. All kinds of different file format
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could be the file that starts your PDF. Or you could use multiple different files. This is going to
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combine multiple different PDFs to create one. This is very handy. I'll show you this in a second
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You could do this from a screenshot, for example, even a screenshot from a capture window
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So you could take a screenshot of your Mac or PC from a clipboard
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The blank page is if you want to just create one from scratch, this is just going to create a blank PDF if you want to do that
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This is typically not how I use it. So I'll go ahead and close this one and I won't save it
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Let's go back to tools, create PDF. And this time, let's go ahead and select a file
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and I'm going to bring this Word document here and I'm going to open it as a PDF
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So what I want to do is I want to change the file format here to all file types
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So I could actually select this and I'll open it here and it's going to create a PDF for me
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And I'll go ahead and press create here. And this was a Word document. But as you could see up here now, it's a dot PDF document
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So that's converting it from a different file type into a PDF
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You could do this with just about any type of file format from that page with a celsius
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single documents. I'll show you how to do it with a picture too. Sometimes you want to turn a
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PDF into a picture. So if you create a PDF from here and drop a picture right over here
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Now here's a picture here in PDF format. So I could go ahead and save this as a PDF. Well
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let's go back here to the previous document because next I want to show you editing a PDF. This is
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the power of Adobe Acrobat Pro. Sometimes if you get a PDF file, it's not editable. Even if a text file
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was saved in a way where you can't open and it's not editable. AccuropPro is going to let you do that
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So the way we do that is with this document opened up over here
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we just need to go to the all tools tab. So sometimes this is going to be on the right side for you
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Here is on the left side for me. These are all the different tools I have available for me
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So I want to click edit a PDF right here. Exporting I'll show you in a little bit
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But right now, let's go ahead and edit it. And what it does is it turns all this into editable text
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You could see I could select the text. So for example, let's say I don't want this whole paragraph
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I could go ahead and delete it. And it going to get rid of that paragraph And it going to look very seamless here And if you change your mind if you come to the edit menu here we do have an undo option So I could undo delete over here and get back what I deleted
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And you could also obviously do this with individual words. So in this case, I left a placeholder
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I would have to type in someone's name here. So I could quickly do that. And as you could see, it's picking up the font from the rest of the document
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So I don't actually have to worry about font, font size. Even though I'll show you you have some options there
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There's another placeholder here. I could go ahead and delete a supervision of Steve
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I'll type that in. The CEO name would go over here. So you could see I could quickly make any type of adjustments over here
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Now, sometimes you may want to change the entire formatting or maybe you don't like the font
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I'm going to select the whole document here. And over here, I got the usual font
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So if you come from Microsoft Word, for example, works the same way. So I could choose this option
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And if I want to make it bigger, I could choose a different font size over here
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You could change the font color if you want. A ton of different colors are available over here as well
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You can make it italic. So all the different font options are available, spacing and everything else too
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Okay, now let me show you quickly how to save it. So if you go to file over here, you could just do a save right here
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And you could go ahead and quickly save it. So I had the word version, but now I'm going to save this as a PDF file
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So I'll save that. But I also could go ahead and export this a different way
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So export a PDF. You could also choose these different options. So you could turn a PDF into a Word and you could also save it as a JPEG
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If you wanted to just send this as a JPEG text message, for example, as a picture
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Well, right now, if I go to my computer, this is the Word document and this is a PDF document here
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Let me just show you the preview. So it saved as a .pdf. And I could email this from here since I made the edits here that I wanted to
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But I'm going to show you some more editing options with the signature coming up
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Okay, let me go back to the homepage. Next, let's go ahead and open a different file type
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So again, you could see the recent files appear over here, and you could quickly jump back and make edits to anything you've opened up recently
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I'll go back to all tools. Next, I want to show you how to add images and how to add text
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So we'll use this document I found online. So let's go ahead and go to create PDF and drop it right over here
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And typically, again, I like to go to edit PDF here, so everything gets selected here
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where I could make any edits by selecting any words or sections. But in this case, let me show you how to add text that's not here
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I showed you how to add text that is already here. But let's say I delete this entire section
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In fact, I'm going to select this entire box and delete it. So this is going to be a white section
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But now I want to add text, but I can't. It's not going to let me just start typing
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So what I need to do is click this text option here. As long as you're under edit, you'll get text and image
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But if you select text, it's going to let you click. And now you have the text option where you're
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could go ahead and type any text. Now the formatting is based on what it was selected previously
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So I could go ahead and select this formatting and change it. So to know what text the rest of
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the document is using, I'm going to select part of the document. So here then I'll see the font
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and I'll see the font size. So if I select this, now I could type in that font, make sure I
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choose the same font and the font size was 12 and the color was black. Okay, there we go. So
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So now I'm going to move this. These boxes are movable too, and you could change the size as well
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But right now, if I move it and make the box a little bit bigger, and I'll stretch it out to match this box
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So this is going to be the area where I could now type. So if I just select some text, just for the sake of time
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I'm not going to type from scratch. I could go ahead and delete this, and I'll right click here and paste
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And there you go. So I could change the formatting. I could add spaces here
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this was set in bold. I'll make this bold. Okay, so you get the idea pretty straightforward here
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and now the font matches what was there previously. Now you could do this with images too. So maybe
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this image is not right. You could go ahead and select and replace the image here. So if I select
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this option, I could bring in another image and there you go. We have a different image here
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and I could go ahead and move this around if I don't want this to be center. For example
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I could make it smaller here. And I could reorganize my entire PDF this way. So I
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I could grab these boxes, move them up. Let's say I want to add a different picture underneath that
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So everything becomes very easy. If I want to change the top, I could go ahead and delete that
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add something new here Let say in this case we just make the picture much bigger Okay let go back to the all tools section Next I want to show you how to combine different files and how to start organizing it So you see a couple of different options You have
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organized pages and you have combined files. Let me show you combined files and then I'll
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show you organized pages. With combining files, you could take multiple file types and turn them all
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into one PDF. This is a very common use case for using Adobe Acrobat Pro
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So I add files. And let's say I want that last PDF I created
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And I want the one I just had opened and this flyer here. And I'm just selecting shift here on my computer to select multiple
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If you're on a Mac, hold command and select these and add files
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And now you have three different files. Again, you could have JPEGs
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You could have PDFs. You could have Word docs. It's going to convert them and it's going to combine them
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So if I press combined right on top here, now I have every
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as one document. So this is the first document. This is the second document and here's the last
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document. Well, the first one that we created here all as part of one document. The only problem
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is they are not in the order I want them to be. So that's where organizing documents comes into
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play. And here, again, under all tools tab, you don't always have to go back here, by the way
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So over here, all tools always show up over here on the left or right side, depending on your
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layout. And I want to organize pages. When you click this, it's going to show the document as it is currently in this order
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But this welcome page is what I want in the very beginning. So I could select it and just drag and drop it
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And you can see that blue line. Now, this is the very first document that is going to appear
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Once I save this multiple PDF document as one PDF, I could then do the same thing
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Maybe this or this one actually needs to be second. I'll move it over here
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So very easy to go ahead and reorganize your document, any which
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way you want. Sometimes let's say actually this doesn't make sense. I could delete it and it's going to
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delete it from this binder. It's called a binder 1.pdf. So I will have to save this with the right file
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format. Every time you combine multiple PDFs, it always calls a binder. Now that we're done here
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let's go to file and let's go ahead and save as. We want to choose the folder where we want to save it
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But you see save as binder 1 is going to take the name up here. So you could go ahead and change this to the name
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of the document that you want here and make sure it's a file PDF format and save it
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Okay, with this next document, I want to show you how to fill out a fillable document
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where you don't have to add text manually. Sometimes like this IRS document, you're going to see these blue boxes where you could just
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type in your name here. So your name, your first, last name is going to go over here
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Some documents are going to be protected. So you're going to get a pop-up that's going to say it's not going to let you edit it
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So I did want to show you that because once you protect the document, you, you're going to be protected. it could only be filled and signed like I have over here
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I can't just make any edits to this document that I want you see this cannot be edited
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because it's this kind of form that is protected. I'll show you how to passport protect your own with tax documents and things like that
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it's very useful to do that. So with these you just fill in based on the font selection that they give in you
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And right here let me show you signature because most of the time when you're using Adobe Acrobat
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you want to sign documents or require you. the signature and I'll show you password protection
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But here, I need to sign it over here. So to do that, I'm going to go to all tools
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because we have something right over here called fill and sign. And if you select fill and sign
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you're going to get this right here, where this is going to show you a signature
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where you could add your signature and any previous signature you've created
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you could select this. So I'll show you, once you create one, you just click on it, and then you could just drag
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and drop it like this into your documents. I'll delete this one and let's go ahead and add a signature
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So I'll select this. So you have three options here. So you could type in your name and choose a different type of style
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So they have looks like four different styles right now. And that's what your signature would look like
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And you could make sure it's saved. So next time you get a little box right here where you could click on it and you don't have to do this every time
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You could go ahead and draw here. And you could also add an image here
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If you have an image, let's say you took a picture of your signature. You could add it as an image here
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and it's going to go ahead and do a good job with that. But in this case, let's say this is what I want to do
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and it going to go ahead and let me put it over here or anywhere within my documents I put it right over here And there it is now every time i could use this option over here and sometimes you have check boxes so check boxes when they filled like
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this you could go ahead and select them like this but if they're not filled like this you could go back
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to all tools and then just go back to fill and sign and you'll get these options over here so this
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x or this checkmark they will be available here they made sure you could only choose checkmark but usually
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if they don't have a format it this way, you could choose any of these options here to fill in any
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type of boxes. Just to show you that in a different document, it's right over here. So if I select
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this, you could see all these. I could just select and put them anywhere within my document like this
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and I could change the size here if I want to do that as well. I'll delete this one
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Now, you also could protect a document. So let me show you that right over here as part of your tools
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You have protected PDF. If you select that, you could protect with a password
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or you could do all these type of different encryption and security options. This is usually a really easy way to protect your document, click on it
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And you have two options. If someone is viewing the document, you could require a password
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or if someone is editing the document, you could require a password. So I'll type one out
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I close that document, it's right here. If I double click it to open it, let's say I emailed this to someone
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they're going to get this box here where they have to type in a password to view it
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or if you chose editing to edit it. And once they type in the password, it's going to open it here
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As usual, they could go and edit this document or if you have those fillable boxes, they could just click
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They don't need Adobe Acrobat for that. Now I'll show you the AI options in a second, but typically once you're done with a document, you want to either print the document or email the document
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So they do have an option right on top here. If you select print this file, it's going to bring up your printer dialog box or you could go to file here and they do have a print option available
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In this case, let's email it. So this little icon here, send a link
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and you could go ahead and choose your email here and set it up through here
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In most cases, what I've done is I've saved these here to my computer like this, so these .pdfs
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And I could go ahead and send them from here just by opening whatever email I want to use
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Like if I want to use Gmail, I'll just go ahead and attach this to that email
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Now, sometimes the document's going to be too large. So I wanted to show you this option
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If you go to file, you could compress a PDF. So retain existing, press OK, and make sure you know
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name this something else and this is going to be now much smaller of a file so it's going to reduce
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the size so the previous package was 16.9 megabytes that's huge right but look at this new
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package it's only 300 kilobytes this is not even one megabyte here and it looks perfect right so
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most of the times you do want to save it and compress it this way i typically do this then i just
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drag and drop this into any email that i want to send out if you want to share this document to get
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feedback there's a little share icon over here where you could type in someone's email here or you
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could just get a link here and allow them to comment make sure this is turned on get a link and send a link
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yourself and you got this little AI assistant so let me click on this to show you exactly what this does
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this is one of the more useful options that they added to adobe acrobat pro well one thing you could do
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is actually communicate with this document here using these suggestions provide a list of five
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important points or who's the owner look is already scanned the document so he knew dry lab was what
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this document was about or you could type in your own text give me the main point and basically this is a
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great way to have chats with your internal PDFs on your own computer this way right so this is
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going to tell me exactly what the main point of this document is and suggest some follow-ups and if you go
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to tools you also have this generative summary here so you could select that
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and choose any type of document. So I'll open this one from there
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And just like that, it's going to give me a quick summary. So you could just take all your PDFs through this
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to get bullet points here and exactly what the whole document is all about
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And it took seconds. And then I could use that other tool, ask an AI here
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to get that follow-up set of questions back. So that is available either here if you click this
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or if you go to the tool section and choose between one of these and open a document directly from here
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and all your other tools are here, but I touched upon the most useful tools here when it comes to using Adobe Acrobat Pro
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And if you want to learn more about generative AI tools, I also cover chat GPT and exactly how to work with chat GPT in a more comprehensive video
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So I'll go ahead and link that here. Thanks so much for watching this video and I'll see you next time