Random "Tech" Tidbits #1

Computer Application - Batch Processing with Adobe Acrobat Professional

I've decided to add yet another tag to my blog... Did I mention this blog is completely random?

Under this tag, I've decided to mention the little tidbits I've discovered along the way in hopes that I can add a little useful information to the abyss of the internet. I tend to struggle with ideas, Googling to death any question that I need answered. I at least have earned a B.A. in B.S. thanks to Google University! Seriously though, I've found that Google is the #1 most important tool I have at my disposal to answer my million questions. However, there has been one question that's been whooping me for quite sometime at work and Google was not helping at all.

A little background... I do a lot of work lately with computers. I'm not going to get too detailed, but suffice to say I am responsible for ensuring many people have access to many different forms of information. This information can come in many formats, from paper to electronic to verbal. These formats run the gambit and are always changing. Well, what had been whooping me was the simple .pdf format. Pretty much all of the programs I use at work, I've had to teach myself how to use. So therein lies my reliance on Google. What I wanted to do was prevent a group of users from printing documents they were able to view electronically through the intranet website I had developed. Sounds silly, I know, that they can't print, but they can look, but it's part of "the rules" defined by those that get paid a lot more money than I do. Anyway, I have hundreds of these documents and I knew how to secure the printing with each individual file. The lazy part of me knew there had to be a better way to get this done in one fell swoop. So after countless Google searches and clicking like a mad woman in Adobe Acrobat Professional 7.0, I had almost given up.

Then Thursday, a breakthrough! I finally discovered "Batch Processing..."! What an amazing little tool! Ok, maybe it won't cure the common cold, but it did give me a way to finally do what I needed to do to make my job a bit easier for a minute. I was able to change the security settings on multiple .pdf files at one time to password protect printing privileges. Excellent! Depending on what you want to do, you may have to create you're own rule to apply and there are a few options on how to apply batch rules. It was relatively easy to figure out once I got the hang of it. I found that it's available at least in Adobe Acrobat Professional 7.0 and 8.0. I'm not sure about earlier versions or the new 9.0.

If you've found some handy-dandy tricks, please share!