The following instructions are for use with the Adobe Acrobat 6. This being the newest version of Acrobat available, many questions have arisen about the backward compatibility with versions 4 and 5. The following information details the step necessary to insure that files created in Acrobat 6 can be viewed in previous versions. If you are using another .pdf generating software or a different version of Adobe Acrobat, please refer to the appropriate documentation or web site for detailed information they may have provided on this topic.

PDF documents are commonly created in one of the following ways:

1-Creating PDF by Direct Scan,
2-Printing to PDF Writer (from within another application), or
3-Printing to PDF Distiller.

 

STEP 1 - Click on Advanced from the toolbar and choose Acrobat Distiller from the menu.

 

STEP 2 - The ACROBAT DISTILLER screen displays.

• Choose Settings from the toolbar and pick Edit Adobe PDF Settings from the menu.

 

STEP 3 - The STANDARD - ADOBE PDF SETTINGS screen displays.

• Choose the General tab and look In the middle of the screen to locate an area labeled File Options.

• Click the Compatibility drop down arrow and change option to Acrobat 4.0 (PDF 1.3).

• Before continuing, Click the Font tab and make sure that the Embed all fonts option is checked.

• Click the [OK] button and save with defaulted name given.
• Acrobat Distiller should now display in the Default Settings drop down box the new changes and also display Acrobat 4.0 (PDF 1.3) in the compatibility area
• Click the [OK] button.

 

NOTE: It is always good practice to check document properties after saving to PDF. Document properties can be checked fairly easy to insure backward compatibility. Click here for detailed instructions on Checking Document Properties.

Any time you modify a .pdf document in Acrobat 6 (e.g. inserting a page, deleting a page etc...). Use the procedures outlined in Creating PDF by Direct Scan when saving .pdf files after modifications. The SAVE or SAVE AS option should NEVER be used on .pdf files that are being submitted to the court.