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3 Different Ways To Post Your PDF On Facebook

Everyone loves Facebook, and with good reason. The social network has rolled personal networking, content sharing, and business marketing all into one platform. And it’s due to things like Facebook fanpages that have made it easy for businesses and organizations to connect with their communities on a more personal level.

As a result, Facebook Fanpage administrators are always looking for different, more efficient ways to use them. In fact, one user had an excellent idea for her Facebook page that turned into an interesting question about PDF documents and Facebook Notes:

I would like to post a pdf (or Word) document to my Facebook page (not my personal page, to my business page). I would like to post it as a “Note” that everyone who has “liked” our business page can access. And I would like those who view the document to be able to print the document. Is that even possible.

It may sound like a simple thing to accomplish at first, but unfortunately, after some searching, we couldn’t find a direct way to do this. But we did manage to find a few interesting workarounds that came close, and we thought they were worth sharing.

Posting PDF Files With A Link

The first method involved sharing the PDF document as a link, which was probably the simplest way to post a document within a Note:

… We looked into this and, unfortunately, the only things you can embed within a note is an image and a hyperlink. Thus, the only straight forward way to add a document is through a URL linking to the document in your note (such as the Share link provided by our conversion apps or by websites like Scribd.com). And you can only restrict who sees the entire note with the Privacy option.

You’ll only have a link to your document, not the actual document itself. But, on the bright side, you can make the PDF URL an active link by using the HTML tags: <a href=“ Your PDF link here” >Your text here</a> with your link and hyperlink text:

To check your link, hit Preview. The HTML tags should disappear, leaving you with an active link in your Note:

Using a link to post a PDF works with group, fanpage, and personal Walls, as well. The only difference is that you have to post the .pdf link into your Facebook status like you would with any web link you want to share on your Wall.

Code Your Page Using Static HTML: iframe tabs App

The second option we were able to find, while a bit more technical, was more visually appealing than using a link:

If you’re a bit tech savvy with coding though, we found that it can be done via Static HTML: iframe tabs App —https://apps.facebook.com/static_html_plus/?fb_source=search&ref=ts. It will let you embed any type of code you want, including code for a PDF, and can be used for any Facebook app page. The PDF embed code can be provided from any document uploading site (http://youtu.be/UtBWa8dE36M ).

Here’s a direct look at the YouTube Video tutorial:

Using JPEGs And Photo Albums

However, in the end, the user solved the problem by using a few creative tactics, offering yet a third way to do it:

I converted my documents to JPEG and placed them in “Photos”. Everyone who has access to the page can open Photos, then open an album, then right click on each photo/document page and “print photo”. It’s weird, but it works.

Indeed, it does work. Even though the content was converted from PDF to JPEG, the PDF content was still viewable. It was a great trick that even allowed her to restrict printing access only to fans.

If you found a handy solution for this issue yourself, let us know. We’d love to add it to the list.

Investintech How-To Tip: Create A Handout From A PDF Document

Last week, we gave you a couple of tips on how to incorporate a few of our tools into your daily study grind. Those were tools you could seamlessly fit into your existing list of handy resources to help you get your work done.

But for the most part, as a student, you’ll be using digital documents as a major resource that can, indeed, make your school work (and learning) much easier. Yet, the only real problem is getting those digital documents to suit your needs. As they are, they may be difficult to use.

In fact, one tweeter had this exact problem:

PDF to Powerpoint Help — http://twitter.com/#!/tiff_FlOCKA/status/114816270674825217

Students are no stranger to PDF PowerPoint notes from a professor, nor are they strangers to the obstacles they pose. Luckily, Sonic is up for tackling such a task.

Sonic PDF Creator has a feature that lets you combine those multiple PDF pages onto a single page for quick overviews that are perfect when it comes to group studying, delivering presentations, or providing more compact resources.

If you’re unsure of how to get started, here’s a look at the handout creation options in Sonic that will let you format your PDF content into a handout.

1. Open your PDF file in Sonic PDF Creator

2. Go to Tools > Create Handout . . . . You’ll be given the n-Up Pages dialogue box where you can then customize and create your own handout.

Create Handout
3. Select the paper size of the handout

Paper Size

The very first thing to consider is the paper size and the orientation. Each PDF is different and no single handout formatting is a one-size-fits-all deal. Deciding which one is right for your content is easy.

From the drop down boxes you can choose from a wide range of paper sizes for your printed handout (including popular sizes: A4, Legal, 11×17, etc.). Then designate whether your pages will be in portrait, landscape, or Auto (according to custom width and height, which you can set manually).

4. Set the scale for your handout pages

Scale

When dealing with scaling options, you get to assign how those PDF pages will fit onto the page of your printed handout, whether letter size, legal, or 11×7.

The Auto feature lets Sonic calculate how to fit those PDF pages according to the paper size you selected. If you’d like to use the original size of the page, select Use Original Size. Or if you’d like to set the scale of your PDF content yourself, you can easily designate the width and height yourself.

With the Proportionally box checked, your destination area on the handout will remain proportional to the original page size.

5. Decide on the layout

Layout

Now that you have the content scaled down to the paper size and orientation you’ve selected, you get to decide the layout of that content.

When creating your layout first make sure you decide on the measurement unit (point, inch, or mm) you need Sonic to use in order to accurately space the content for your handout.

For the layout, you can designate a different number of PDF pages per column and row along with the margin spacing around them. The gutter measurements (in case you need to bind the handout) can easily be customized to any length you wish.

You can then designate how many pages you want repeated in the hand out and the order of the pages. Note that if the pages of your original PDF content are numbered, depending on your column/row layout and if you want double sided pages, you may want to carefully plan out how your pages can be effectively ordered.

When deciding on the order of the pages, you have 3 options:

Across: Runs from left to right, then top to bottom.
Down: Runs from top to bottom, then left to right.
Stack: Runs from top left of each page, then to right, then to next row.

6. Draw crop marks on your handout pages

Crop Marks

Crop marks can also be drawn onto the handout. You can choose from drawing crops in the corners, center, or both (with the Draw Crop Marks option). After you decide which crop marks you want, you can adjust and customize them manually.

7. Allow for bleed allowance

Bleed Allowance

For handouts that will need cutting, the Bleed Allowance options will let you specify your own measurements to allow for any deviations in cutting the paper to the finished page size.

You can choose from :

None: No bleed allowance.
From original PDF: Use the bleed information from the original PDF file.
Specified: User specify the bleed allowance amounts.

8. Once all your settings in place, click on OK . Sonic will generate a preview of the new handout for you.

9. If all looks okay, you can then save it using the Save or Save As options under the File menu, and then print it out.

If you created a handout with Sonic PDF Creator before, which creation options did you use to make your PDF content look like a professional handout?

How 3 Investintech Tools Can Save Your Academic Life

School’s just started and already you’re starting to sink into your own routine. Whether that means mapping out the quickest route to class or finding the best study spots along the way, you need to make sure everything works smoothly for you in the academic world.

As a tech user, it means getting your laptop and gadgets all set to keep up with you on your daily study grind. With the rise of tech gadgets and the popularity of the Internet, the academic landscape is changing. More group participation is done via forum discussion, class notes are being posted up online, and text books are being downloaded from the web.

However, organizing your arsenal of software tools can be tough when you can’t anticipate where or when you’ll need it. If you’re a user of our software and asking yourself, where and how Investintech software fits in with your academic routine, it’s time to take a closer look. Here are a couple of tip offs.

1. SlimPDF Reader

One way students are upping their productivity these days is to use a laptop in class. It’s easier to type up lecture notes and it eliminates the need for multiple notebooks. Moreover, instead of a 13 or 15 inch laptop, students are now resorting to netbooks. They’re small, efficient, and more convenient on-the-go than a laptop is.

Netbooks, however, while great for mobility, aren’t so great for the hard-core major software programs you have on your desktop. For instance, Adobe Reader is a notable resource hog, taking up a good portion of your desktop hard drive, let alone your netbook. So you’ll need the smallest applications you can find. Luckily, SlimPDF Reader is only 1.43 MB.

Slim PDF Reader Screenshot

SlimPDF Reader gives you the essentials needed for a quick clean viewing experience without the bloat.

So if a prof scans in a PDF sideways, SlimPDF can rotate it right side up with a single click from the toolbar. And as PDFs aren’t always created with a readability and navigation in mind, you can zoom in (up to 400%), quickly skip to any page, and easily search the file for keywords. Copying simple text is also made easy–just select your content and CTRL+ C it. You can paste it quickly into another application.

2. Free Online PDF to Word Converter

As mentioned, most professors will post up lecture notes or slides online. Of course, this makes it easier for everyone, as a) you don’t have to worry about getting everything down, and b) you have spot-on accurate notes from the professor himself. Definitely a resource you want to cash in on for any future assignment.

But, I bet you can guess what format these notes will more than likely be in: the hard-to-edit PDF format. This is where a PDF to Word converter saves the day. You can convert PDF to Word instantly using our free online PDF to Word conversion service.

3. Docx to Doc Converter Online

With the release of Microsoft Office Word 2007 came a new default format, .docx, a format that not everyone is using. In fact, most users are still quite attached to the .doc format. For users with Microsoft Office Word 2007, they can simply save to .doc by changing the Save As format before they save their file.

Yet for those who are receiving a .docx file, it isn’t as easy. Students on the Mac OSX platform using Pages need to import the .doc file to Mac, but have no direct way of converting it. Others may not even be using Microsoft Office 2007, but older versions with no way of opening it.

This .docx to .doc converter is perfect for any difficulties you may come across, whether it be a deadline, lack of compatibility, or being locked out of your email accounts.

DOC to DOCX Converter Interface

It lets you bypass all those hurdles. It’s free, you can use it regardless of the platform you’re using, you can access it anytime online, no registration is needed, and you get the file converted instantly without having to leave the site.

What PDF Tips Can 5 Popular Movies Give You?

One of the major challenges facing PDF users today is finding good tips on creating and handling that picture perfect PDF. Whether it be in regards to content, layout, or creation, it’s likely that you’ve been curious as to how you can make your PDF content more reliable and highly receptible to everyone.

For those who are looking for some ideas, all you have to do is look to the silver screen. There are a few movies that can shed some light on taking your PDF up a notch.

If you put your movie-watching time to practical use, you’ll start looking at a few popular movies—and your daily work, in a different way.

1. Inception (2010)

If you still haven’t watched this movie yet, you’ve probably already heard about the complexity of its story line. The movie’s main character, Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), has a special talent: stealing secrets from others when they’re dreaming. But having been used mainly for corporate espionage, his special set of skills has made him into an international fugitive struggling with his own personal demons.

In an attempt to redeem himself, he takes on one last mission. The goal? Inception. That is, to plant an idea deep within the subconscious of his employer’s rival that will eventually leave his employer with the corporate advantage. The deeper the idea is planted into the subconscious, the more convincing it is.

Thus, for it to succeed, Cobb and his team devise a complex—and confusing, architectural dream structure: a dream within a dream within a dream.

What advice can Inception give us about the PDF?

The content within a PDF file can be as complex in structure as the dream levels created by Cobb’s team, being either broken down into major parts, sections, or even subsections. Navigating through such PDFs can be a real pain in the neck.

Do your readers a favor: add bookmarks to your PDF. Give them a navigational structure for your PDF content, offering a way to move through the file with a single click. To add bookmarks to PDF files, look for a PDF creation tool that comes with the ability to edit PDF content. All that’s needed is a bit of organization to get your PDF user friendly.

2. Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince (2009)

Although something always gets lost in translation between film and book, this trailer is enough to get you fixated on seeing it through to the end on the silver screen. Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince is crucial to the epic franchise in that it shows you where and how it all began with Lord Voldemort.

We’ve been through the first few films knowing Harry’s past, but it isn’t enough for a story that grows dark gradually with each installment. To heighten the stakes and the tension, this movie gives us our first good look at Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes). We’re shown a memory of Professor Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) meeting a young and troubled Tom Riddle (the future Lord Voldemort) for the very first time. And we see him yet again, in another crucial memory, this time as an adolescent in his first curious steps towards dark magic.

We finally see Lord Voldemort’s story (or bits of it anyway) on-screen, up close and personal—as a young student taken in by Dumbledore, and brought up within the very walls of Hogwarts Academy itself.

What PDF advice can Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince give us?

For all the good things PDF files have to offer, they can contain bad things as well without you even knowing it. All you have to do is click on a link, play a Flash video, or even just open the file and you’re caught.

There have been many ups and downs in the past year as PDF hacks started rising in numbers. The scary part is that there are reports that hidden PDF exploits are getting past popular AV programs. Even popular mobile apps and gadgets aren’t immune to security flaws which can be exploited by PDF hacks.

Lesson to learn? Don’t be too trustworthy with every PDF file you come across. While you can’t help the PDF files you get, for your own files, ensure that you have all the necessary security measures you need in place: passwords, file restrictions, watermarks, etc. PDF security is essential.

3. The Matrix (1999)

In 1999, we were all blown away by the idea of the Matrix: the everyday world perceived by humans is actually a simulated reality created by machines. Admittedly, the philosophical ideas that came with it were probably a handful to grasp the first time around.

Luckily, we learn about the Matrix alongside computer programmer and hacker, Thomas A. Anderson, aka Neo (Keanu Reeves), who gets freed from it. Once liberated, Neo’s new friends show him what the real world is like. Having escaped the Matrix, surviving underground, and rebuilding human civilization, they’ve also managed to use the Matrix to their own advantage.

Their sockets, once used to channel and convert human energy to the Machines, allows them to jump back and forth freely between both the Matrix and reality, fighting the Machines on both fronts. Those same sockets are also used for uploading information directly to the mind, allowing them to instantly learn anything that’ll help them survive against Agents within the Matrix.

Being proclaimed as “The One” to end the war against the Machines, Neo gets trained on how to fight and maneuver within the Matrix as well (“I know Kung Fu”). Only by being able to jump back and forth to do so, does Neo—and we, the viewers, begin to get a grasp of what the Matrix is.

What friendly PDF advice does The Matrix have to give?

If one thing The Matrix can give you advice on, it’s the value of hyperlinks. By being able to go directly from PDF to website, or jump from PDF to article, users can get a better experience with your PDF file.

Let’s face it. How many times have you come across a summary of an article in the PDF format, but wasn’t able to go to the actual article? Or being given a fact, aren’t given its source?

If you can link out to different sites or informative links, go for it. But use them wisely! Your PDF is only as good as the content it contains. So include necessary, but relevant, links, as well.

4. Gone With The Wind (1939)

Everyone knows this one. Gone With The Wind, the famous 1939 award-winning classic. Based on the best-selling 1936 novel of the same name by Margaret Mitchell, Gone With The Wind, follows 12 years in the life of Southern belle, Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh in her Oscar winning role) during the American Civil War and the Reconstruction era afterwards.

While the movie is praised as a classic, Gone With The Wind is also notorious for its length at 222 minutes, which translates into 3 hours and 42 minutes– excluding the intermission and both the opening and closing credits.

During those 3+ hours, we watch Scarlett struggle with unrequited love, failed relationships, and financial ruin. That’s almost the length of 2 feature films today!

What PDF tip does Gone With The Wind have for us?

PDF file size does matter. With huge PDFs, the download, upload, and conversion times could very well equal the length of Gone With The Wind itself.

Some tips? Before creating a PDF, ensure that your content is optimized in all aspects. For example, ensure that there are no excess fonts and that you’re using vector-based graphics. Set your compression options as well on both images and text. If modifying a PDF, use the Save As option, not the Save command. Try to downsample the images to a lower resolution, and avoid using a ton of multimedia and fonts for complex web-based PDFs.

Just keep in mind that if you wouldn’t want to sit around downloading a PDF file for more than a minute, chances are, your readers wouldn’t want to either.

5. Avatar (2009)

Avatar was an undeniable groundbreaker, both graphically and technically. However, it may surprise you to know that, according to James Cameron, Avatar was written more than 11 years ago, but the filming of the movie was delayed because the necessary technology to transfer his vision of Avatar onto film wasn’t available at the time.

As a result, only due to new filming methods and pushes in technology that were developed and employed right up to a year and a half before the movie was released, was filming made possible. To merge the actors into virtual characters, for instance, facial performance capture (used to transfer and create emotional details in CG) was done with mini cameras rigged to small caps worn by the actors. By employing a real-time virtual camera, Cameron was then able to direct CG scenes just like live-action scenes easily. And with the movie being almost entirely digitally generated, the creation process demanded a new way of storing and sharing all the data being generated. To that end, Microsoft created Gaia, a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system, to act as a hub for the huge amounts of data being used.

The result? One of the most visually stunning movies ever created.

What PDF tip does Avatar have to offer?

Special graphics can make any PDF pop! The PDF has come a long way from its first days and is now advanced enough to handle graphics like a pro.

Since PDF version 1.6 came out, the format came with support for embedding 3D objects. The next PDF version just took it to the next level, and has been improving ever since. Today, the format can also support geospatial capabilities, AutoCAD drawings, media, geometry, and graphics.

If you’re looking for ideas, go ahead and take a look at the Adobe Acrobat User Community gallery. They’ve got PDFs showcasing what is graphically possible with a PDF. And don’t worry about that content not being reusable. There are PDF converters powerful enough to handle advanced conversions like PDF to AutoCAD.

These are just 5 movies to get you started. What other movies can you think of?

How The PDF Can Solve 7 Problems

pdf problem solution The Adobe PDF format is extremely versatile. It’s a swiss army knife format that can help you out in a number of tight situations.

But are you still asking just how versatile the PDF is and how that versatility can help you? Let’s show you what the PDF can do.

Here are 7 real-life problems you can solve with just this one format.

Problem #1 – Data Security

I’m worried about data being stolen from my computer or someone reading a file that they shouldn’t. How can the PDF help me?

Well Adobe Acrobat 9 has improved document security built right into it. So you don’t need to worry about the secret company information getting into the wrong hands or the wrong eyes seeing it. It allows you to set a password for everything from opening to changing. You can control whether or not a document can be printed and even permanently remove specific information or meta information. You can even prevent files from copying, editing and commenting (according to the Adobe Acrobat website).

Example Document types:

Invoices
Contracts and agreements
Surveys and questionnaires
HR forms and documents
Strategic planning documents
Design reviews
Pharmaceutical submissions
Government and military intelligence briefs

Problem #2 – Easy Collaboration and Editing

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