Mapsoft Plug-in Suite

A set of Acrobat plug-ins to help with your day to day PDF publishing tasks, consisting of 18 of Mapsoft's Adobe Acrobat plug-ins combinred into a single integrated desktop package.
Combines 18 of the most popular Mapsoft plug-in products in one package enabling you to create a complete interactive and automated solution to your Acrobat enhancement requirements.

Plug-in products include:

• Impress
• Maskit
• BookMarker
• AcroBatch
• ContentScaler
• DocuMerger
• DogEars
• Flattener
• ImagePlacer
• InfoSetter
• Automator
• OpenOptions
• SecuritySetter
• PDFSplitter
• ThumbNails
• TOCBuilder
• PageManager
• MediaSizer

Mapsoft Plug-in Suite - Features

Combines 18 of the most popular Mapsoft plug-in products in one package enabling you to create a complete interactive and automated solution to your Acrobat enhancement requirements.

Plug-in products include:

Impress Maskit BookMarker AcroBatch ContentScaler DocuMerger DogEars Flattener ImagePlacer InfoSetter Automator OpenOptions SecuritySetter PDFSplitter ThumbNails TOCBuilder PageManager MediaSizer

Impress

Impress enables text impressions to be stamped to a range of pages in a PDF file. This can be set either as a watermark which is on a layer below all of the existing text and images or above where it can be used for headers and footers, page numbering etc. Variables can be set to define page numbering, total number of pages and date and time.

The following options are available to allow you to control the impression with which you want to mark your document:

• Text the text to be used for marking the specified pages of your document. The text you specify here will appear on the relevant pages within your PDF file. Within the text, you can enter some special fields relating to page numbering and date/time stamps. These fields will be replaced with their specific values when you impress your PDF file. These fields can be date and time stamps, page numbering, page counts and page ranges.
• Alignment controls the alignment used for your impression. Alignment options are Left, Centre and Right
• Name the name of this impression. To reuse an existing impression (either one you created previously, or one of the samples supplied with Impress) make your selection from the drop-down list associated with this field.
• Position controls the horizontal and vertical positioning of the impression within a page, and its angle.
• Layer controls whether the text appears in the foreground or background of the specified page(s).
• Font control the font settings to be used for your impression: Colour - sets the colour of the impression either with pre-set colours or as RGB or CMYK.
• Page Range specifies the pages which you wish to mark with this impression:
• Page Spread Specifies the page spread, of pages lying within the specified page range, to be marked with the impression. These can be Odd and Even Pages, Odd pages only, Even pages only,

Maskit

MaskIt allows you to erase areas of content from a PDF document. Use the MaskIt tool from the toolbar to draw a marquee, then select whether you want to remove content inside or outside that defined area, and the content is removed.

Maskit can create masks that remove information from either:

• Inside a defined area, such as a graphic or logo
• Outside an area, for example, to remove headers and footers from a page but leave everything else on the page intact.

Masks are easily defined using the Mask tool available from Acrobat's main toolbar. Once defined masks can be applied to the current document and/or saved for future use.

When defining masks the following options are available:

• Mask Type Controls the type of mask to apply. Two types of mask can be applied, Inside where the area inside the defined area is masked, or Outside where the area outside the defined area is masked
• Page Range Specifies those pages to which you wish the mask to apply
• Page Spread Specifies the page spread, of pages lying within the specified page range, to which your mask is to be applied.

BookMarker

Use the TextSelect tool from the Acrobat toolbar to highlight a sample of text. Bookmarker then uses the attributes of the selected text to define a particular bookmark level. Bookmarks can be nested to any level.

• Option to set the bookmarks to be expanded or collapsed.
• New destination page View option: Fit Visible (to margin).

Using the simple BookMarker dialog you can create multilevel bookmarks to any depth easily and quickly. Using the TextSelect tool from the Acrobat toolbar, you highlight a sample of text whose attributes are used to define a particular bookmark level; for example, a heading or sub-heading. Other bookmarking tools limit your ability to create as many levels as you wish; BookMarker has no such limitations.

Used in conjunction with TOCBuilder, BookMarker gives you unrivalled power and flexibility. Once you have decided how you want the bookmark levels to be set, the settings can be saved for re-use or for use with MacroBatch. When combined with MacroBatch and other toolbox tools, you have unrivalled flexibility and power to modify or standardize many files in one easy go. The processing can be applied to the current file only, or all the files in any number of specified directories, or to specifically selected files, OR any combination of these options.

AcroBatch

The AcroBatch tool allows you to directly access the standard Acrobat batch processing commands (for example Print or Execute Java Script) from within Acrobat A full list of the commands supported is given in the drop-down list associated with the Command field in the AcroBatch dialog box.

ContentScaler

Using ContentScaler, you can scale the entire contents of selected pages of a PDF document by a specified percentage. Amongst other applications, this tool can be used in conjunction with MediaSizer when the margins are too narrow after converting from US Letter to A4.

DocuMerger

DocuMerger merges template PDF files with the existing document content, specifying which page you want to merge. This tool allows you, for example, to apply company letterheads to PDF content.

You can specify if the merged content is to be placed into document as an overlay, on top of any existing page content (for example a letterhead) or as a watermark below the existing page content. You can also specify those page(s) on which you want the merged content to appear.

If the merging is performed on documents with different media sizes, the bottom left corner of the source document is aligned with the bottom left corner of the target document.

The DocuMerger tool is particularly useful when adding a logo from one file into another. If you use more than one logo you could store all the logos in one merger file and then select the one you want to extract and merge into a document.

You can use this tool with Mapsoft Automator which allows several different merge operations to be performed on a file. For example, you could generate an address overlay, followed by a logo overlay, and then add a letterhead. If you wanted each different element could be held on different pages of the same file.

DogEars

DogEars is a publishing tool for use with Adobe Acrobat for marking pages within a document so that you can quickly flip back to them when you require.

As well as using dog-ears to help you locate specific pages within a document quickly and easily, you can also extract all the pages on which dog-ears have been set into a new PDF document. If you choose to do this then all the pages within a document that have been marked with a dog-ear will automatically be pulled into the new file: all pages that have not been marked with a dog-ear will not be pulled into the new file.

Flattener

The Flatten document tool allows you to dramatically reduce the size of certain PDF files by flattening active parts within the document, like navigation buttons and forms. It is also possible to remove extraneous mark-up from your document, or for example, to flatten form data into the main document content so making the completed form viewable across many platforms.

ImagePlacer

ImagePlacer is a publishing tool which allows you to stamp a graphical image onto specified pages within a PDF document. The graphic can be stamped as an overlay, or as a watermark. Overlays appear in the foreground of the appropriate page. Watermarks appear in the background of the appropriate page behind any existing text. Images stamped as an overlay can also be transparent. This means that the text beneath the graphic can still be seen/read.

You can save a named configuration and re-use it again and again, either with ImagePlace itself, or with Mapsoft's unique automation tool, Automator. Automator allows you to use your saved ImagePlace configurations to stamp your chosen graphic onto multiple files in one operation. Automator also allows you to use ImagePlacer in combination with other Mapsoft publishing tools to create a sequence of actions that can be applied to single or multiple documents. Each tool can be added to this sequence more than once, and each time it is used it can have different settings.

InfoSetter

You can use the InfoSetter tool to set document information pertaining to your PDF document(s). This tool allows you to set or change the standard PDFs document information fields listed below:

• Title
• Subject
• Author
• Keyword
• Index
• Base URL

Automator

Automator is a robust automation tool which delivers a professional solution for working with Adobe Acrobats Portable Document Format (PDF) documents to your desktop. It is a unique automation macro builder tool designed to be used in conjunction with the following Mapsoft publishing tools, which have themselves been designed to assist publishers and writers in working with PDF files.

OpenOptions

You can use OpenOptions to change the default appearance of PDF file(s) when they are opened within Acrobat. Acrobat offers a built-in facility to control the default File Open options (via the File > Document Info option).

SecuritySetter

Acrobat has various in-built security features controlling access to PDF documents. Within Acrobat these features have to be set on a file-by-file basis (by selecting the File > Save As menu item). However, Mapsoft SecuritySetter allows you to set these security features once, and then apply those settings to a large number of files if used in conjunction with Mapsofts Automator tool. Obviously if security options are set for multiple files, all files opened in the same batch must have the same or compatible security settings.

Using the SecuritySetter tool you can set two types of password to limit access to your PDF files:

• Open the Document password Users must enter this password, sometimes referred to as the user password, before they can open the document to which it applies.
• Change Security Options password Users must enter this password, sometimes referred to as either the master or owner password, if existing security options are to be changed. It is advisable to set this password, as if it is not set, anyone who opens the file could then remove any restrictions that might apply to it.

Passwords can be changed or deleted. However, passwords cannot be recovered from the document should you forget them.

When changing a documents security it is important that you are aware that while SecuritySetter is able to make the changes you require, the remaining tools in the Master Toolbox, and many of Acrobats functions too, require you to perform a Save As operation before these tools/functions can be informed of the changes made with SecuritySetter. Under Acrobat Version 5, it is often necessary to perform a Save As before your changes become visible. Under Acrobat 6 you are also advised to perform either a Save or a Save-As operation to ensure that security modifications are fully understood by Acrobat before proceeding with other operations.

PDFSplitter

PDFSplitter splits an existing PDF file into separate PDF files. You choose if you want existing bookmarks to be retained or not.

You can use Mapsofts PDFSplitter tool to split an existing PDF file into separate PDF files. You choose if you want existing bookmarks to be retained or not. You can choose to split the file into a new file for each individual page within the existing file, or you can specify the range of pages which should go into each new document. In this way it is possible just to extract those pages you require from a large document and 'leave' the rest.

ThumbNails

You can use the Mapsofts ThumbNails tool to embed thumbnails within a document. A thumbnail is a miniature view of each page within a document. Thumbnails can be displayed in the Thumbnails tab located to the left of the document window (called Pages in Acrobat 6). You can choose if you want thumbnails to be embedded within your document or if you want them to be exported into separate image files. If you create external image files you can use them in desk-top publishing (DTP) or web design. The ThumbNails tool allows you to specify if these image files should have borders around them, which would make them easier to use in publishing.

You can also use the ThumbNails tool to remove any existing embedded thumbnails from within a file.

TOCBuilder

The TOCBuilder tool allows you to create a Table of Contents for a document. Each entry within the Table of Contents can show the appropriate page for that entry, (as in a traditional Table of Contents for a printed document). In addition each entry within the Table of Contents is also linked to the actual heading within the document to which that entry relates. Selecting that link from within the Table of Contents will cause the focus in the document to jump to the relevant text. The Table of Contents is thus a powerful tool for navigating around your document.

The Table of Contents can be hierarchical, with sub-sections being indented below higher level sections, or it can be flattened with all entries appearing at the same level. Using options within the TOCBuilder you control the positioning and appearance of all the entries within a Table of Contents. TOCBuilder uses bookmarks found within a document to generate the Table of Contents.

The bookmarks used by TOCBuilder to generate a Table of Contents can have been created directly within Acrobat, or they can have been created by using the Mapsoft BookMarker tool (see previous section for details). BookMarker creates list of bookmarks from the headings found within a document. Typically, most large documents are organised by chapter, section and sub-section, and BookMarker uses these different heading levels to create a hierarchical set of bookmarks.

If the original bookmarks within a document are hierarchical, then the resulting Table of Contents will be hierarchical too. In a hierarchy subordinate items are indented to the right. Each different heading level within the Table of Contents will correspond to one of the hierarchical levels within the bookmark list. Thus, TOCBuilder will create a level 1 Table of Contents entry for each level 1 bookmark found within the document. It will create a level 2 Table of Contents entry for each level 2 bookmark and so on. Options you specify to the TOCBuilder tool control the appearance and positioning of each different heading level within the generated Table of Contents.

The number of levels to which the Table of Contents can be nested depends on the level to which the bookmarks have been nested. For example, if bookmarks are nested to four levels then you can set up to four different levels of entries in a Table of Contents.

PageManager

Have you ever wanted to look inside a PDF file? Maybe you are a developer, maybe you work with PDF or maybe you are just curious. With PDF Explorer you can display the internal structure of a PDF file and explore its contents in an interface resembling that of Windows Explorer.

PDF Explorer is a plug-in for use with Adobe Acrobat. It allows you to explore the contents and internal structure of a PDF document. We developed it for our own use as it is an invaluable tool when developing PDF solutions. It can also be used as a diagnostics tool for non-developers.

This plug-in is ideal for looking at resources used within a PDF file, fonts, bounding boxes etc. It will be of use to developers working with PDF files, or anyone who has an interest in the internal structure of such files.

Before you can use PDF Explorer you must first open the PDF document whose contents and structure you wish to explore using this plug-in. Then select the PDF Explorer option from your viewer's Plug-Ins menu. Detailed information concerning the open PDF file is shown in the displayed dialog box.

The PDF Explorer dialog is split into two halves. On the left-hand side a tree view of all the low-level (COS) objects found within your PDF file is given. Initially this simply shows one entry, Document. Click on the plus sign next to this entry to expand the details. Keep clicking on the plus signs next to the items you are interested in until you reach the level of information you require.

MediaSizer MediaSizer is a plug-in for use with Adobe Acrobat. It allows you to change the media size of pages in PDF document. For example you might want to change a Letter size document to A4 for distribution in the European market or A4 sized document to letter size for the North American market.

MediaSizer works differently from the page clipping facility offered within Acrobat itself which can only reduce the page size, as with MediaSizer not only can you specify a standard page size such as A4 or Letter, but you can also increase the page size. Custom page sizes can also be added.