Editing

When the "Edit" button is clicked in the Viewer window the Edit window is launched.

There are three tabs available in Edit mode - Thumbnails, Mark-Ups and Bookmarks. Each tab shows a different view and allows different edit operations to be performed. Either the toolbar or the menu items File, Pages, Bookmarks, Rotate and Tools can be used to perform edit operations.

When you have finished editing the document you must save the document. When you close the Edit window the modified document will be displayed in the Viewer window.

In Edit mode there are a number of different operations that can be performed:

Operation
Drawing Tools
Sticky Notes / Comments
Custom Stamps
Insert Media / Attach Files
Redaction
Split PDF
Split PDF into many PDFs
Apply Document Security
Apply Document Information
Scan Pages
Insert / Append or Delete Pages
Bookmarks
Rotate pages
Apply Stationery
Apply Digital Signature
Perform Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
Rearrange Pages

Thumbnail View

The left hand side contains thumbnail images of every page in the document. The right hand side shows the current page.

Add/Remove/Rearrange Pages

You can rearrange the order of pages by selecting thumbnails and dragging them into the correct position. You can delete pages by selecting a thumbnail and pressing the delete key. You can insert or append pages using the pages menu. You can split a PDF into multiple PDFs.
 

Bookmark View

You can move bookmarks around by the "drag and drop" method. If you right click on a bookmark, you will see a menu of options for adding, deleting and changing bookmarks.

By default, the bookmark is placed at the top left of the chosen page. You can use the Select Bookmark Destination menu item to select a point on the PDF other than the top left of the page.

Mark-up View : Drawing Tools

Typewriter Text, Text Box, Oval Text, Arrow, Line shapes can be draw on the PDF.  To so so, click on the desired tool in the Drawing tools panel then left click on the page view and drag the object to the desired shape by holding the left mouse button down.

The attributes of the object can then be adjusted by clicking on the remaining controls in the Drawing Tools panel.



Mark-up View :  Sticky Notes / Comments

Sticky notes are little windows on the PDF page that contain text.  The windows can collapse or appear by double clicking on the icon.  A variety of icons are supported.

 


Mark-up View :  Custom Stamps

These are text boxes that can be placed on top of the PDF content.   They can be resized and rotated.  You can add your own strings by typing in the 'stamp text' field.  Gradient style fills are supported. Click here to watch a video tutorial.

Stamp Text This is the text that appears as the watermark.  There are 14 standard text strings, however you can add your own, just by typing in this combo box.  Your customized strings will be remembered at the start of the list.

Sophisticated tags and control characters to include things as timestamps, auto incrementing numbers, document name and environment variables can be inserted. 
- This button will remove the current selection in Stamp Text from the list of available stamps. Only stamps that were not provided by default with pdfMachine can be deleted.
Insert When clicked the text in 'stamp text' will appear in a new stamp in the middle of the current page.
Insert on all pages If clicked then the stamps will appear on every page of the document.
Set properties for all stamps Use this if you want to set all the stamps in the stamp text combo to have the same attributes.

Mark-up View :  Insert Media / Attach Files

This view allows insertion of sounds, images or files for embedding within the PDF.

Insert Image When clicked, a file selection dialog appears. When a bitmap file is selected it is automatically placed into the centre of the current page where it can be resized and moved.


Record / Insert Sound When clicked, the following dialog appears:



If a microphone is present then recording begins when "start recording" is clicked.   Alternatively, a previously recorded file can be selected with the "browse" button.  Most WAV files are supported.

When "insert into PDF" is clicked, the dialog is closed and a sound icon is inserted into the middle of the current page.  When the sound icon is double clicked, the sound is played.
sound icon


   
Attach Files When clicked, displays a dialog for attaching and removing embedded files within the current PDF.
 

Mark-up View :  Redaction

Redaction allows you to permanently remove text and images from the PDF, replacing them with colored blocks. The information is removed, not just hidden. Redaction provides a means to protect sensitive or confidential information.

Once "start redact" is clicked, redact mode is entered. You can then "draw" redact rectangles on the document. Once "apply redactions" is hit (or the document is saved) the redact rectangles are "burnt in" to the document, removing all content behind them. Each page that contains a redaction is converted to an image to ensure 100% redaction. You can use the color selection tool to change the color of the redact blocks. Click here for a video tutorial.

File Menu

Save Saves the current document as is
Save As Saves the current document to a particular file
Split PDF at current page Splits the current PDF into two documents.  Opens up another PDF viewer with one of the documents. Read more here
Split PDF into many PDFs Splits the current PDF into many documents. Read more here
Toggle Thumbnail View Maximizes / Restores the thumbnail view.
 
Email PDF as attachment Executes the email processing of the current PDF.  By default, this launches the default email client with the PDF attached.
Document Security Invokes the document security dialog.   Allows security settings to be applied on the current document only. The document can be encrypted with either 40,128 or 256 bit encryption. Passwords can be set to restrict who can open or change aspects of the document.
For a description of settings, see here.
Document Info Information about the document such as title, subject, author and keywords can be set for the current document. These settings are only applied to the current PDF.

The Document Information can also be set to apply to all newly created PDFs, by setting the Document Information in the pdfMachine options.

Close Closes the edit window
Insert Pages Prompts you to insert a PDF file before the current page. Read more here.
Append Pages Prompts you to append a PDF file to the end of the document. Read more here.
Append Pages from Scanner Prompts you to scan in pages to be appended to the end of the document. Read more here.
Delete Pages Deletes the currently selected pages. Read more here.
Select All Pages width="688" height="20"Selects all pages.
Cut 'Cuts' the highlighted bookmark ready for the paste operation
Copy 'Copies' the highlighted bookmark ready for the paste operation
Paste Adds the previously copied or cut bookmark as a sub bookmark to the currently highlighted bookmark
Delete Deletes the highlighted bookmark
Select Bookmark Destination By default, the bookmark is placed at the top left of the chosen page. You can use the Select Bookmark Destination menu item to select a point on the PDF other than the top left of the page. 
Rename Renames the highlighted bookmark
Edit / Add Displays the following:


This allows you to change the page the bookmark will take you to when it is clicked on.

Rotate Menu

These options rotate the currently selected pages in the thumbnail view. If no pages are selected then the entire document is rotated or flipped. Read more here

Tools Menu

These options have corresponding settings under the pdfMachine options dialog, however unlike the pdfMachine options, these dialogs are only applied to the current PDF in a once off mode.

Stationery Add PDF stationery to the current PDF.  For details on PDF stationery click here
Digital Signature Add a digital signature to the current PDF.  For details on digital signatures click here.
Set Crypto Password This is a pdfMachine ultimate feature, optionally used for signing PDFs where a password is required to access the private key. If set,  pdfMachine will remember this password and use it when required, so you dont have to enter it each time.

This is particularly useful when doing a batch job consisting of a lot of signed PDFs.  e.g. pdfMachine word merge that produces 1000 signed PDFs.

If you change the password outside of pdfMachine, you will have to redo it here.

If you set the password to a blank string, it will clear the remembered password and you will have to enter it each time you sign a PDF.

For details on digital signatures click here.
Attach Files Attach / embed  files to the current PDF.   For details on attaching files click here.
Run OCR Use optical character recognition to convert scanned images to searchable text. For details on using OCR within pdfMachine click here.
Set OCR Language Select which language will be used when using OCR to convert images to text. For details on using OCR within pdfMachine click here.