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nothin77
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How do you put markups into layers?

Feb 23, 2012 10:27 AM

Categories: Windows Tags: #markups

I work at a company where we use the redlining capability of Adobe Acrobat X Standard to mark up drawings (lines, arrows, text boxes, etc.).

 

Is there a way to put all of the redlines created into a layer?

 

Will the redlines in the layer still be editable?

 

Is there a way to then take that layer and export it to other PDFs?

 

If Adobe Acrobat X Standard can't do this are there any other Adobe programs that can do this? Are there any plug-ins that allow you to do this?

1840 Views   8 Replies   Latest reply: nothin77, Mar 13, 2012 10:43 AM
 
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  • George Johnson
    9,222 posts
    Aug 11, 2002
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    1. George Johnson,
    Feb 23, 2012 10:44 AM   in reply to nothin77
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    It might help if we understood why do you want to put them on a layer. What advantage would this provide?

     

    You can export comments to a file and import them into another.

     
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  • nothin77
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    2. nothin77,
    Feb 23, 2012 10:56 AM   in reply to George Johnson
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    My company has a lot of PCB drawings that require the addition of notes and other changes. All of the PCB drawings will have the same if not very similar changes made to them.

     

    To document these changes redlines must be made. The program that my company has chosen to do this with is Adobe Acrobat X Standard.

     

    It would be nice to be able to paste a layer into a drawing PDF, then edit it as needed.

     

    The other option is to copy the redlines manually (clicking on all objects and hitting CTRL+c) from a template PDF and then paste them into the PDF being worked on. But this seems to labor intensive.

     
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  • George Johnson
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    Aug 11, 2002
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    3. George Johnson,
    Feb 23, 2012 11:05 AM   in reply to nothin77
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    As mentioned, you can export comments from one document and import them into another, This would only make sense if the documents were basically the same (number of pages, page content, etc.)

     

    To do this in Acrobat 10, see: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/acrobat/pro/using/WS5C708ECF-6A4E-49df-B07 0-92C56CE13207.w.html

     

    To import: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/acrobat/pro/using/WS7B0272D0-73D4-4042-804 B-7D43EE9307CB.w.html

     
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  • Dave Merchant
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    4. Dave Merchant,
    Feb 24, 2012 1:19 AM   in reply to nothin77
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    While it is possible to move annotations into a layer using Acrobat Pro (via Preflight), you cannot copy and paste layers, or save out a specific layer as a 'template'. If you try to import a page containing annotations or form fields into a layer in another file, the annotations are flattened into uneditable graphics.

     

    The drawback with export/import of comments is that your dates (and possibly usernames) will be wrong. You could edit the position of the markup, but correcting the rest would take just as long as re-drawing them by hand.

     
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  • nothin77
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    5. nothin77,
    Mar 6, 2012 10:34 AM   in reply to George Johnson
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    Thanks for the advice! It worked. But I am having one problem. If I rotate a page in Adobe then import redlines as you suggested the redlines will be rotated. Is there a way to make it so the redlines don't rotate?

     
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  • Dave Merchant
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    6. Dave Merchant,
    Mar 6, 2012 2:16 PM   in reply to nothin77
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    Copy and paste operations respect the rotation of both the page and the annotations being copied, so if there's a mismatch things will always behave strangely. The blunt answer is to un-rotate (or match the rotations of) your pages before trying to copy and paste stuff. You can fix the rotation of individual annotations after they've been pasted, but not by direct manipulation so you can't spin a group of them around a common center.

     
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  • nothin77
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    7. nothin77,
    Mar 6, 2012 2:44 PM   in reply to Dave Merchant
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    Is there a way to modify the fdf file (see George Johnson's 2nd comment above) so that it won't rotate when being imported into a PDF file different from the one it was created in?

     
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  • nothin77
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    8. nothin77,
    Mar 13, 2012 10:43 AM   in reply to George Johnson
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    I have found out more about my problem.

     

    The problem is not that the imported redlines are rotating. The problem has to do with how the redlines are located.

     

    All annotations are located using a cartesian coordinate system (x,y) with the origin (0,0) at one of the four corners of the PDF page. The problem is that the origin can be in different corners depending on what device generated the PDF and how much the PDF page has been rotated. So if I create an fdf in a PDF that has the origin at the lower left hand corner and then import the fdf into a PDF that has the origin in the upper right hand corner the annotations from the fdf file will be rotated 90 degrees.

     

    Is there anyway to keep the origin in the lower left hand corner for imported fdf files?

     

    It would be nice if I could make all PDF generating devices (scanners, pdf printer drivers, etc...) put the origin in the Lower Left hand corner but I don't think this will be possible.

     
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