White Paper Adobe® Acrobat ® 8 for Legal Professionals By David L.
White Paper Adobe® Acrobat® 8 for Legal Professionals Table of Contents 2 Portable Document Format (PDF) 3 The Acrobat 8 product family 3 Legal-specific features 4 PDF file creation 6 Combining files 6 PDF fundamentals 7 Enhancing PDF files with Acrobat 8 7 Search and find information 8 Gathering information 9 Collaboration 9 Secure information control 10 Information presentation 10 Closing Argument 10 About the Author 10 References With the release of Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional, Adobe Systems now del
“With the redaction features in Acrobat 8, we can accomplish in minutes tasks that previously took days. When you’re redacting content from more than 2,000 documents, it is essential to have a tool that is easy to use and reliable. Acrobat 8 makes it easy to hide or permanently remove confidential content and still preserve the original.
•R edaction—Legal professionals must often share documents with other parties. However, in many instances, not all information in those documents should or can be shared. Acrobat 8 Professional enables you to excise sensitive or confidential information in PDF files. In PDF files with text, words and phrases can be searched for and automatically marked for redaction; information in image-only PDF files can be manually selected for redaction.
“Acrobat 8 software sets new standards for improving document processes. Capabilities such as redaction, Bates page numbering, and streamlined completion of electronic forms improve document handling and provide greater control over workflows.” Electronic mail messages or entire folders of electronic mail convert to PDF with attachments, links, and automatically generated bookmarks with a spreadsheet-like view that can be sorted by sender, date, subject, and folder.
Combining files Acrobat 8 gives legal professionals the ability to combine files of varying types into a single PDF file. For example, a collection of files consisting of Microsoft Word and Excel files, JPEG or TIFF image files, and PDF files can readily be merged into a single PDF file or assembled into a “package.” PDF Packages are a secure container for PDFs and many other types of files. This example is a set of real estate closing documents.
“Adobe Acrobat and Adobe PDF are easy to use and have enabled us to advance the way we research and build cases. Adoption across the firm has been rapid, even by lawyers who are resistant to new technologies.” Scott Thomas Director of Technology Thomas & Kampsen Law Firm whole documents are familiar paper-based tasks that have intuitive counterparts in Acrobat 8. The typewriter tool provides a simple and effective mechanism for adding text to any PDF file.
for information in paper documents is often slow, inefficient, and costly. In contrast, searching for information in digital documents is fast, efficient, and cost-effective. Acrobat 8 can search multiple PDF files that contain text for words or phrases. Comments added to PDF files can be searched regardless of whether the file contains text.
fill in, save, and return a form by electronic mail. Information obtained through PDF forms can easily be exported to a spreadsheet or plugged into a database forfurther examination. Collaboration Joint-drafting and collaboration on legal documents present special challenges. Legal professionals frequently need to send documents to other professionals for review, but in doing so must uphold their duty to protect client confidences.
enable them for commenting in Adobe Reader. With Acrobat 8, you retain control over document content. Concerns about the manipulation of original work product are controlled because you can impose usage restrictions that limit what the recipient can do with your PDF file.
