PDF TipsThe following are tips for working with PDFs and distributing them to students:
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1. Scanning:
Instead of making photocopies, you can scan files via the copy machine and distribute them to students electronically using your course management system (most commonly Moodle/Edmodo).
2. OCR Text Recognition:
Running OCR (Optical Character Recognition) most likely needs to be done only when you scan something via the copier - but you can check to see if any document needs it by attempting to select/highlight text on the page. If you cannot highlight specific words, then run OCR. To run OCR:
3. Giving Students Ability to Take Notes and Save Work:
Students have different software than you; they have Adobe Reader and you have Adobe Acrobat. When you create a PDF, you must save it in a way so students can take notes on it and save their work. To do this:
If you need to make changes to words/images on PDFs, you can use the following tools: TouchUp Text Tool, TouchUp Reading Order Tool, TouchUp Object tool. You may need to run OCR Text Recognition for these to be accessible - depending on where you got the document.
Instead of making photocopies, you can scan files via the copy machine and distribute them to students electronically using your course management system (most commonly Moodle/Edmodo).
- If you would like the capability to scan using a copier, please fill out a work order request.
- When scanning a document on the copier, it is best to scan to your H:drive as opposed to e-mail. If you choose e-mail and the file becomes too big, it will error out and you will have to go through the scanning process all over again.
- The scanner creates a “picture” of the document, it is best to transform this to text so that students can highlight words/sentences AND/OR so you can make minor touch up edits to the document. To do this, you will run OCR Text Recognition.
2. OCR Text Recognition:
Running OCR (Optical Character Recognition) most likely needs to be done only when you scan something via the copier - but you can check to see if any document needs it by attempting to select/highlight text on the page. If you cannot highlight specific words, then run OCR. To run OCR:
- Open your PDF and go to Document > OCR Text Recognition > Recognize Text Using OCR
3. Giving Students Ability to Take Notes and Save Work:
Students have different software than you; they have Adobe Reader and you have Adobe Acrobat. When you create a PDF, you must save it in a way so students can take notes on it and save their work. To do this:
- Go to Advanced > Extend Features in Adobe Reader > Save the file
If you need to make changes to words/images on PDFs, you can use the following tools: TouchUp Text Tool, TouchUp Reading Order Tool, TouchUp Object tool. You may need to run OCR Text Recognition for these to be accessible - depending on where you got the document.