GCMW 103: Schedule

Week 1: Introduction
Orientation and course overview; About Adobe Acrobat & PDF; Adobe PDF on the web; Designing documents for online viewing; Looking at the work area; Register with Acrobat.com, AcrobatUsers.com; Set up Blogger or WordPress blog

Week 2: Creating Adobe PDF Files
Working with Acrobat tools, toolbars, task buttons and the navigation pane; Using Organizer; About creating Adobe PDF files; Using the Create PDF command; Dragging and Dropping files; Converting and combining different types of files; Using the Print command to create Adobe PDF files; About the Adobe PDF Settings; Reducing file size; Compression and resampling; Scanning a paper document; Converting emails to PDF; Converting web pages to Adobe PDF; Capture PDF documents from a scanner; Capture PDF documents from websites

Week 3: Editing PDF Documents & Combining Files into PDF Portfolios
About PDFMaker; Converting Microsoft Word files to Adobe PDF; Inserting 3D content into PowerPoint presentations; Converting Excel documents and starting a review; Converting web pages from Internet Explorer; Exporting tables from PDF files; Converting and combining multiple Office files; About PDF portfolios; Creating a PDF Portfolio; Customizing your PDF Portfolio; Sharing your PDF Portfolio; Securing a PDF Portfolio; Searching a PDF Portfolio

Week 4: Accessibility
What is Accessibility; Section 508; Meeting the standards of section 508; Adjusting a document to be accessible; Creating accessible PDF files from Word, Excel & Powerpoint; Testing for accessibility compliance; Verifying tags; Accessibility check; Read out loud; Reflow; Container, heading & paragraph elements; Special text elements; Inline-level elements; Label & list elements

Week 5: Signatures, Security & Review Cycle
About digital signatures; Creating digital signatures; About security; Looking at security settings; Adding security to PDF files; Adding passwords; Certifying PDF files; Signing certified documents; Exploring on your own: Using security envelopes; About the review process; Adding comments to a PDF document; About the commenting tools; Working with comments; Initiating a shared review; Interactive live collaboration; Optimizing PDF documents; Create a tagged documents; Optimize documents for CD/DVD applications & the Web; Distiller compression methods

Week 6: Working with Forms
Developing a PDF form; Converting PDF files to interactive PDF forms; Adding form fields; Using auto-complete features; Using auto field detection; Assigning form field properties; Importing form data; Distributing forms; Collecting form data; Working with form data: Calculating and validating numeric fields

Week 7: Extending Forms with JavaScript
Page & document JavaScript; Form Fields highlighting; Checking Acrobat versions; Calculating form fields; Auto-entering form data; Dynamic form fields; Dynamic controls with templates; Field validations; Formatting text fields; Alerts & dialog boxes; JavaScript functions; Creating pop-up menus; Interacting with databases; Generating reports

Week 8: Midterm
Simulation Exam

Week 9: Using Actions & Working with 3D in PDF
Using predefined actions; Creating an action; Sharing actions; Menu commands; Create a JavaScript Action; Create a thread of linked articles; Create an article; Add a thread to an article; Converting 3D design files to PDF; Working with 3D PDF models; Using 3D in the manufacturing workflow; Using 3D models in technical publishing; Creating 2D graphics & animations with 3D toolkit

Week 10: Creating Multimedia Presentations & PDFs on the Web
Adding a video file to a PDF file; Adding a Flash animation; Create movie controls; Adding sounds to page actions; Adding sounds to form field actions; Assigning a poster file for a video or animation; Creating a presentation; Viewing PDFs in Web browsers; Working with Web links; Adding Web links to multiple pages; Controlling links view behavior; Opening web links in new browser windows; Adding URL links to text fields; Converting PDF to HTML; Setting export options; Converting text documents to HTML; Exporting PDF files with images to HTML

Week 11: Advanced Interactivity
Searching basics; Selecting an index to search; Constructing queries; Entering a query; Viewing search results; Preparing PDF files to be indexed; Creating a new index; Building indexes; Using Distiller; Creating PostScript files for Distiller; Using watched directories; Distiller and fonts; Using PostScript programs to control Distiller; iText & PDF hacks; Enhancing PDF in Acrobat Exchange

Week 12: Working with eBooks
EReaders: iPad, Nook, Sony Reader, Adobe Digital Editions; Exploring the Adobe eBook library; EPUB; Anatomy of an iBooks page; Preparing files for EPUB; Using InDesign for EPUB; Adding metadata to an ebook; Export EPUB from InDesign; Validating an EPUB file; EPUB formatting; Formatting for Kindle; Hosting content

Week 13: Designing for Interactivity
Interactive interface; Buttons; Image based buttons; Multi-object buttons; Button variations; Animation; Animating letters; Multi-state objects; Banner ads; Page transitions; Adobe Media Encoder; Bookmarks; Hyperlinks and cross-references; Working with text; Multi-page layout; Output

Week 14: Creating an Interactive Document
Planning web publishing project; Creating paragraph styles; Generating an interactive table of contents; Creating character and nested styles; Exporting via interactive PDF and SWF; Creating buttons with actions and appearances; Using object styles for interactive elements; Using master pages to add interactivity; Completing a navigation bar; Creating hyperlink destinations; Creating hyperlinks; Nesting master pages for centralized interactivity; Working with imported video; Creating navigation points for video; Using the animation panel; Working with the timing panel; Creating multi-state objects; Controlling multi-state objects with buttons; Adjusting timing in a multi-state animation; Resetting the initial states of pages; Adding artwork for built-in interactivity

Week 15: E-Publishing
PDF vs. HTML; Document preparation; Evaluating your electronic property; Legal aspects of protecting intellectual property; Digital copyright; Digital preservation; Digital rights management; Metadata; Open access; Economic issues; Electronic serials; License agreements

Week 16: Acrobat Connect
Create a meeting room; Selecting participants; Sending invitations; Navigating within a meeting room; Controlling access to a meeting room; Managing attendees; Setting & viewing connection properties; Using presentation controls; Sharing an image; Using a whiteboard; Screen sharing; Sharing your desktop; Sharing an application; Using FlashPaper to share a document

Acrobat.com is a suite of web applications from Adobe Systems that allows users to create, collaborate on and share documents, tables, and presentations; hold online meetings with others; convert files to PDF online; upload and share a variety of files with others; and manage and collaborate in online workspaces. The website offers services for file storage and sharing, workspaces, buzzword word processor, tables, presentations and ConnectNow online meetings. All of these services are available for free, with some limitations.

With Adobe Acrobat XI, you can unify a wide range of content into a PDF Portfolio — a single PDF file that can contain other PDF files, Microsoft Office files, videos, Adobe Flash Player compatible videos, and more to make your best work look better than ever. Now with enhanced rich media support and more customizable templates to create polished documents.

In addition, you can manage and track electronic document reviews with a complete set of comment and markup tools. You can do so much more when you're on the same page with co-workers, customers, partners, and suppliers.

The new Action Wizard helps you automate multistep tasks, saving you loads of time. Then export your action and share it with your co-workers. Create, manage, execute, and share a sequence of frequently used steps that can be applied to a single PDF or batches of files.

Adobe Acrobat XI software helps you create high-impact PDF communications, collaborate more easily, and streamline reviews.Create and distribute interactive forms more easily than ever before. It's just one more way Acrobat X Pro can make everyday work more efficient and productive.

Quickly bring ideas to life through rich, interactive documents. Insert audio, Flash Player compatible video, and interactive media into PDF files, for seamless playback in Adobe Reader X or Reader 9.

Use Adobe SendNow online services from within Acrobat to send, share, and track large files without the headaches of email size restrictions, FTP sites, and costly overnight services.

Easily convert existing forms to fillable PDF forms with intelligent form field recognition, or design them yourself using included templates. Collect data quickly and export to spreadsheets for analysis. Track and manage responses.

Adobe Acrobat XI and Adobe Reader XI software continue the tradition of providing strong accessibility support for Adobe PDF documents and forms. Acrobat XI features a number of built-in accommodations for people with disabilities as well as support for users of assistive technologies. In addition, Adobe Acrobat XI Pro software provides authors with a complete set of tools to create and optimize accessible PDF files from almost any source.

Acrobat provides several preferences that help make the reading of PDF files more accessible for visually impaired and motion-impaired users, including preferences that control how PDF files appear on the screen and are read by a screen reader.

PDFMaker provides conversion settings that let you create tagged PDF files directly from sources such as Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and Word and other popular word processing and desktop publishing applications.