Greetings DFWAUGers!!!

I hope this week finds your creative energies flowing, and clients knocking at your door. Let me get the linkage up for the folks in a hurry:

Bryan Tamayo's "Thinking Outside The Page" PDF Tutorial - Read about Bryan over at the Dallas Acrobat user group. Download his PDF at no charge. Send him an e-mail to let him know how much he rocks.

This past weekend I made a quick trip to Houston to speak at the AIGA 2007 "Design in the Fast Lane" student conference. It was my honor to jump in last minute, and talk about creating interactive portfolios with Acrobat Professional. Thanks to Jan over at Adobe for asking me to present, and Robin Tooms (current AIGA Houston president) for being such a gracious host Saturday. There were plenty of folks at the event, and I'm glad I made it in time to hear the opening keynote. Christian Helms from the Decoder Ring did an excellent job setting the tone for the day, and his enthusiasm was contagious. The event ran into the evening, and sadly I had to leave before the conference ended.

For those who were unable to attend here are some key points regarding PDF portfolios:
1. PDFs can be viewed on Mac or PC computers.
2. Acrobat Reader is freely available and probably used by potential clients.
3. A single PDF can be used for both online & print portfolios.
4. PDF eliminates the need for multiple presentation files on the web. (Embed Flash & QuickTime files in a single PDF)

Things to consider when building your PDF portfolio:
1. Is this an online or print portfolio? Would it be best to create a one PDF or multiple PDFs to present to potential clients?
2. What version of Acrobat Reader will be used to view the PDF? Just because most computers have Acrobat Reader installed does not mean they have the latest version.
3. How should the PDF document properties be set for best presentation? Does the customer need to see the Bookmarks or Pages panel? Will the PDF open in full screen mode?
4. Always "Optimize for Fast Web View" when creating the PDF. This item does not affect resolution of images.
5. Be sure to review the Security settings, and make sure the PDF is locked down correctly. Remember, the Permissions Password only restricts access to the Permissions dialogue panel.

Inserting media files within a PDF:
1. The Movie Tool can be found on the Advanced Editing toolbar.
2. Double-click on a PDF page to insert media content.
3. Acrobat 6 is the proper setting for selecting Flash & QuickTime media content.
4. When inserting a Flash file make sure the .SWF has its own stop command to prevent looping.
5. Once a media file is inserted in the PDF, double-clicking the file will open the media file options.
6. Use multiple renditions of a .SWF file when distributing content to both dialup & broadband customers. (A single media container within a PDF can hold multiple renditions (versions) of movie content. Parameters such as bandwidth can dictate which rendition is displayed to the consumer when they activate the media container)

It's another hectic week for this Adobe enthusiast, but I hope to post more on this topic in the upcoming weeks. Feel free to contact me if you have questions about PDFs and new media.