Sonic PDF, Version 2.0 (Sonic) Tutorial

Sonic PDF allows users to create PDF documents from Windows-based applications - if you can print documents from an application, Sonic PDF can convert those documents into PDF format!  Users are then able to ensure that the content of their electronic documents will be viewed properly - regardless of whether the original software application exists. Once a document has been created using Sonic, or if the user is working with an existing PDF document, Sonic PDF empowers users to make certain edits to PDF documents, such as adding or removing a page, or otherwise manipulate the document – by adding a password, creating a booklet, etc.

The following tutorial touches on the following two (2) topics:

1. PDF Creation Using Sonic PDF
   There are two methods to create PDF documents using Sonic:
   
   

   a) Create PDF documents using Sonic's User Interface 
   b) Create PDF documents by printing to PDF using Sonic's Print Driver

2. PDF Editing and Manipulation Using Sonic PDF

1. PDF Creation Using Sonic PDF - User Interface Method

a) PDF Creation using Sonic's User Interface - Starting Sonic

Double-click on the Sonic icon.

The start-up screen will then show for a moment:

When the start-up screen automatically closes, the main window of Sonic will open, as seen below:

If this is a new purchase or a demonstration trial, the following screen will appear:

Click on the appropriate selection to proceed. If you have purchased a license and received a registration PIN, you will additionally be asked to enter your PIN number after clicking "Activate". If the trial is selected, you will be provided the option of purchasing the product after typing "Try". Please note that the Trail/Demo version of the product is limited to a seven day trial period.

Click on the Create PDF icon, " ", or select the Create PDF From File… command from the File menu. For instructions on creating a Secure PDF document, please review the information under the "Sonic Guide to Secure PDF Documents" heading of the help file.

Sonic will show the Open dialogue. Select the directory and the file you wish to open and type or click on its name.

Sonic will then automatically begin the PDF Creation process, which may involve the automatic opening of certain applications supporting the file type selected.  Once the PDF is completed, it will launch the newly created PDF document in the Sonic PDF User Interface for viewing.

The newly created PDF document assumes the same document name as the original document – except with the file extension “.pdf”. The user than can select the “Save” Icon on the toolbar – or select “Save” or “Save As…” from the File menu – to save the document and, if desired, change the name of the saved document.

If the user attempts to close the document or Sonic PDF application without saving, a dialog box will appear asking the User if the would like to save the newly created PDF document prior to closing.

Note: If the Users selects “No”, the newly created document will not be saved. Selecting “Yes” will launch the “Save” or “Save As…” dialog – allowing the user to select the location and name for the created PDF file.

b) PDF Creation Using Sonic's PDF Print Driver

Sonic can be accessed from any Windows application that has printing capabilities.  The example below is using Microsoft Word.

To create a PDF document from this Word document, the Sonic user has two options. First the user can click on the “Create PDF” button located under the standard Word toolbar or select the “Create PDF File…” under the File menu. These options are only available for select applications – such as Word or Excel.

Second, using the Print Driver Method, the user can select the “Print…” option under the File menu. This Print Driver Method should work for most applications that support a print function.

Once the "Print" dialogue opens, select Sonic PDF as the print driver - it should appear as it does, circled in red, below:

After selecting Sonic as the “printer”, clicking "OK" (or in other applications, “Print”) from the Print dialog box will commence the PDF creation process using Sonic's Print Driver. 

As the PDF creation nears completion, the user will be prompted to choose a location to save the PDF and to specify a PDF name (if different from the default) in the following Dialog:

At this stage, the user will also be able to click on the "Options" button (bottom, on right side) in the Save As dialogue, which provides users with a variety of advanced options for the created PDF document, including adding security to the document.

For more details on the security settings, please refer to the "Sonic Guide to Secure PDF Documents". Other items under the PDF Options dialog are explained in the Sonic Help File.

After the desired options are selected, if applicable, and the “Save” button is clicked, the newly created PDF will automatically launch in the in Adobe Acrobat, allowing the user to preview the PDF document that has just been created.

2. PDF Editing and Manipulation Using Sonic PDF

Sonic PDF has a variety of tools that empower users working with existing or newly created PDF documents. This tutorial will review only a few select features – Insert/Delete Pages, Stamp Image and Merge PDF Files.

Before using any of the PDF tools included with Sonic, the user must first open the Sonic application.

Once Sonic is open, click on the Open icon, ‘ ‘ or select “Open” from the File menu in order to launch the PDF file you wish to view and work with.

The editing tools will be ‘activated’ and can now be used.

After selecting the PDF file to be opened using the Sonic PDF viewer, the PDF document will launch and should be visible in the main application screen. Because a PDF document is now open, the PDF tool icons on the tool bar should now be activated:

At the bottom of the window, in the image above, you will notice that there is a tab with the document name. When several PDF documents are opened in the viewer, each document will have an associated tab. This is designed to make it easier to navigate between different PDF documents.

Insert/Delete Pages
To insert a page into an existing PDF document, simply click the ‘ ’ icon, or select the “Insert Pages…” item from the Format menu. The PDF document must first be open prior to selecting the Insert Page function.

The following dialog will then appear:

Leaving the default settings, displayed in the dialog box above, and pressing “OK”, would result in a single blank page being inserted to the end of the document. This might be useful if a user wishes to add a divider page.

If the user wishes to insert a page, or multiple pages, from an existing PDF document – they can specify a file by choosing the “From PDF file” option.

The results from the action above will be to add the first page of the “Add a Page” PDF file to the current document:

The above image shows that a page has been added to the previously existing “Tutorial – Converting to PDF” document. The information box on the bottom left, circled in red, shows that it has been added as a second page to the end of the document.

If the user decides to delete a page from a PDF document, they can click on ‘ ’, the Delete Page icon, or select “Delete Pages…” from the Format menu. Using the same example as above, the user can delete the added page, by clicking ‘OK’ in the following dialog:

The resulting document is the same single page document that we started with:

Stamp Image

The “Stamp Image” function is a useful way for users to either add an image or a watermark to existing PDF documents. By doing so, a PDF document can be marked, or branded, with a company logo or other image. This example will take a company logo, then added it to an existing PDF document as a corner logo.

The first step is to click on the stamp image icon, ‘’, or select the “Stamp Image…” item from the Format menu.

After selecting Stamp Image, the following dialog will appear:

Clicking on the file select button, ‘ ’, will enable you to select a image file that you wish to stamp on your PDF document. In our file, we have selected the Investintech logo – bitmap images selected will appear in the “Image Preview” window of the ‘Image Stamp’ dialog.

There are several settings in the ‘Image Stamp’ dialog that allow the user to specify the shape, position, characteristics and location of the image to be stamped on the document. The default is to stamp the document in the middle of the page. In this example, the image logo that we have needs to be reduced in size. We also wish to add the logo to the top right corner of the page. To achieve this result, the settings the ‘Image Stamp’ dialog should appear as follows:

The resulting PDF, with the stamped image as specified above, will appear as follows:

Merge PDF Files

Sonic PDF has the ability to merge two files that have been opened in Sonic’s PDF viewer. Below is a screenshot that shows that two documents have been opened in the viewer: 1) the “Tutorial – Converting to PDF” file that we have been working with; and 2) the “Add a Page” file that we worked with above.

By clicking on the Merge files icon, ‘ ’, or selecting the “Merge PDF Files…” item from the Tools menu, the following dialog will appear:

In order to create a merged document, the user must first click on one of the opened files listed under the “Opened Files” column. Once selected, the “Add>>” button will move the file into the “Files to be Merged” column.

Files can be arranged in the “Files to be Merged” column by arranging the column upwards or downwards by first selecting the particular file, and then clicking on the “Up” or “Down” button, as applicable.

The resulting file combines the two opened files into a single document. The new, merged document will be named in the style of “SonicPDF#” – this default file name can be changed by using the “Save As…” function under the File menu.

This tutorial only touches on a few of the available functions of Sonic PDF. We invite you to explore and use the complete feature set – details for each feature are available in our Help File. If you have any feedback, questions or comments – we encourage you to contact us! You can send emails to: cs@investintech.com

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