A brief guide to the PDF output options within Adobe Bridge CS5
Accessing the PDF Output Options
Select Window > Workspace > Output
The shortcut key for this is Command & F4
The Output Panel
Switching to the Output Workspace ensures that the Output Panel is displayed, by default this is on the right side of the Bridge window.
To work with PDF output ensure that the PDF button is selected (1).
Selecting the Images
The next step is to use the Content (1) and Preview Panels (2) to select the files to be included in the PDF output.
Options – Document
Once the required files are selected the next stage is to work through the options to ensure the finished PDF output is as required.
The first option available is to use a predefined template from the Template dropdown (1) (you can actually make your own templates too)
Assuming you need to customize the available options then the starting place is the Document section of the Output panel where there are settings relating to the entire PDF document to be created.
1. Select either a Page Preset (2) or create a custom size page using the Width (3), Height (4), orientation (5) and quality (6) settings
2. Use the Background (7) option to specify a background colour for the PDF
3. Specify whether a password is required to open the PDF (8) and/or make changes to the PDF (9)
Options – Layout
The Layout section contains options for controlling how the files selected are laid out in the document.
Options – Overlays
The Overlays section allows metadata from the images to be included within the PDF.
Options – Header
The Header section gives complete control of the information that appears in the header area of the PDF and how it is laid out.
It is not necessary to have a header area and it can be toggled on and off.
Options – Footer
The Footer section gives complete control of the information that appears in the footer area of the PDF and how it is laid out.
It is not necessary to have a footer area and it can be toggled on and off.
Options – Playback
The Playback section provides options to control how the PDF behaves when opened in Adobe Reader.
Options – Watermark
The Watermark section is much improved over previous versions and now allows watermarks to be added to individual images as well as giving much more granular control over the precise placement of them.
Watermarks can also now be text based or customized images.
Creating the PDF Output
Once all the settings have been configured it only remains to specify whether the created PDF should be opened after it’s created (1) and then click Save… (2) to save the PDF file.
