PDF Portfolio Conversion and Reordering

Note: Acrobat X allows you to drag and drop to reorder files!

At the International Legal Technology Association show this week, I demonstrated one of the top new features of Acrobat 9— PDF Portfolios.

Portfolios are a great way to deliver closing binders and deal books. Clients find PDF Portfolios easy to use and engaging because:

• Portfolios can contain both PDF and non-PDF content
• Portfolios are searchable
• Portfolios use a folder structure for organization
• Portfolios are sortable via a spreadsheet-like interface

See a Demo Movie of PDF Portfolios Using a PDF Portfolio for Closing Binder

There
was a lot of interest in PDF Portfolios at the show, and a few questions that I haven’t addressed here on the blog:

1. How do I convert non-PDF documents (Word, Excel, etc.) into PDF inside a Portfolio?
2. How can I convert all incoming documents to PDF at the time I create a PDF Portfolio?
3. How do I change the order of the files in a Portfolio?

Fortunately, there are methods to address the issues above. Read on to learn more.

Converting a non-PDF to PDF inside a PDF Portfolio

Easy! Just right-click on a non-PDF file in the portfolio and choose Convert to PDF . . .

Note: Two Copies! When you perform an in-Portfolio conversion, Acrobat does not delete the original file. The result is two copies— the original version and the PDF version.

Converting everything to PDF when you create a Portfolio

Although non-obvious, this is also easy to do. Here’s how:

1. Choose File—> Combine—> Merge Files in Single PDF . . .
   (A) Enable the PDF Portfolio option
   (B) Click the Options button
2. 
3. Ensure that “Convert all files to PDF when creating a portfolio” is enabled:
4. Click the Add Files . . . button in the Combine Files window.
   
   You can navigate to individual files or folders.
5. Make the following changes in the Add Files window:
   (A) Choose “All Supported Files” from the Files of Type menu
   (B) Select the files you wish to convert to PDF
6. Click the Combine Files button:
   

7. A progress window appears. If you have many files, it may take a while for conversion.
   
8. The PDF Portfolio editing window appears. Here you can customize the appearance of the portfolio, etc.
   

Changing File Order

The file order of a portfolio is determined by the order in which you combined the files.

Using the method above, each file is assigned an Index value based on the order specified in Step 5 above.

This is a key advantage of using this method to create a PDF Portfolio (instead of File—> Combine—> Assemble PDF Portfolio).

You can change the sort order after the fact. Here’s how:

1. Click on Specify File Details in the Portfolio edit window.
2. 
3. Enable the Index field
4. 
5. Edit the Index field values to re-order the files.
6. 
7. If you don’t want the Index field to show in the List view, disable the field after adjusting the field values:
8. 

I don’t have an index field! This will be the case if you created your Portfolio using the Assemble method.You can add your own numeric field (call it Index) and set the initial sort order to it. Then, edit the field values as above.