Frequently Asked Questions

If producing PDFs from a Microsoft Office application, Acrobat is on the same machine (installed after Office was installed). There will be a PDF icon on the toolbar called Create Adobe PDF. In Office2000 and later there will also be a menu option Acrobat -> Create Adobe PDF or Convert to Adobe PDF.

To avoid corruption problems, you should always upload PDF files to your server in Binary format.

• From the Start Menu (on Windows), go to the Control Panel > Printers & Faxes
• Right click on the Adobe PDF printer and go to the printing preferences
• Specify an output folder and any other options you may want
• Make sure View Adobe PDF result is not checked
• Right click on the Adobe PDF printer again and choose as the default printer

• Next, in Acrobat 7, 8, and 9, go to Advanced >Batch Processing…  In X and XI, go to Tools > Action Wizard.
• Click on New Sequence
• Name it BatchDistPrint, click OK
• Click Select Commands
• Under document, select print and click the add button, click OK
• Select what files you want the batch to run on
• Change “Select an output location” to “Don’t Save Changes”, click OK
• Select BatchDistPrint and click Run Sequence

One of the features offered by FileOpen is the ability to set expiration dates.

The PDF may be damaged and may not process properly. If optimizing the PDF does not eliminate the message, try redistilling it. If it no longer displays error messages when viewed, it should be fine to use with any of our products.

Cleaning Up PDF Documents

Not all PDF files are created equal. The way in which a PDF document is generated makes a difference, and PDFs generated by third party tools in particular can vary in quality. PDF documents can also become corrupted.

To check how the file was created:

• In Acrobat 6, select File > Document Properties… and click Description. Under PDF Information, look at PDF Producer.
• In Acrobat 7, select File > Document Properties… and click Description. Under Advanced, look at PDF Producer.
• In Acrobat 8, 9, X, and XI, select File > Properties… and click Description. Under Advanced, look at PDF Producer.

If the PDF Producer field is blank, consider the file suspect.

Making a Clean PDF

If you are having problems with a specific PDF, try to create “clean” version of your document. There are two ways of doing this using Adobe Acrobat. If you use other PDF manipulation software, check the documentation for functions that may be equivalent to those found in Adobe Acrobat.

Method 1: “Optimize” your PDF

• In Acrobat 6 and 7, select Edit > Preferences… and click the General Category, then check Save As optimizes for Fast Web View in the Miscellaneous section.
• In Acrobat 8, 9, X, and XI, select Edit > Preferences… and click the Documents Category, then check Save As optimizes for Fast Web View in the Save Settings section.

Select File > Save As. You can save over the original file or give it a new name.

Acrobat 6 and later includes the ability to optimize all PDF files in a directory at the same time using Batch Processing.

• In Acrobat 6 and 7, select Advanced > Batch Processing… and run the Fast Web View sequence.
• In Acrobat 8 and 9, select Advanced > Document Processing > Batch Processing… and run the Fast Web View sequence.
• In Acrobat X and XI, you’ll create an Action to optimize a directory of files. Refer to Acrobat’s on-line help system for more information.

If saving as optimized does not work, distill the document by following the steps below.

Method 2: Distilling PDF Documents

Distilling a document will remove all comments and form-fields from the PDF.  If the PDF contains these items and you wish to preserve them, you must save them before Distilling.

To save existing comments

• In Acrobat 6, select Document > Export Comments… In the Export Comments dialog box, select a name and location for the Forms Data File (.fdf), and click Save.
• In Acrobat 7, select Comments > Export Comments > To File… In the Export Comments dialog box, select a name and location for the Forms Data File (.fdf), and click Save.
• In Acrobat 8 and 9, select Comments > Export Comments To Data File… In the Export Comments dialog box, select a name and location for the Forms Data File (.fdf), and click Save.
• In Acrobat X and XI, select Comments > Comments List > click the Options icon > Export All to Data File… In the Export Comments dialog box, select a name and location for the Forms Data File (.fdf), and click Save.

See the additional step below for saving form fields (if any):

Delete all comments:

• In Acrobat 6, 7, 8 and 9, select all the comments in the Comments pane and click the Delete icon on the Comments tool bar.
• In Acrobat X and XI, select all the comments in the Comments List pane and press the Delete key.

To save form fields (if any):

• Save a copy of the original file. You will copy and paste the form fields from the original file into the new file after the distilling procedure.

Distilling the document

To distill a PDF document do the following:

• In Acrobat 6, 7, 8 and 9, select File > Save As… (In Acrobat X, select File > Save As… > More Options > PostScript.)
• In the Save As dialog, choose PostScript (*.ps) for the Save as type.) Choose a name and location for the file and click Save.
• Choose a name and location for the file and click Save.
• Open Acrobat Distiller (In Acrobat X and XI, select Tools > Print Production > Acrobat Distiller).
• In Acrobat Distiller, select File > Open… In the Open PostScript File dialog, locate the PostScript file created in the previous step and click Open.

The distiller will create a new PDF file with the same name and location as the PostScript file.

Restoring comments

To restore the comments:

• In Acrobat 6, select Document > Import Comments… In the Import Comments dialog box, locate the Forms Data File (.fdf) previously saved and click Open. The comments are restored.
• In Acrobat 7, 8 and 9, select Comments > Import Comments… In the Import Comments dialog box, locate the Forms Data File (.fdf) previously saved and click Open. The comments are restored.
• In Acrobat X and XI, select Comments > Comments List > click the Options icon > Import Data File… In the Import Comments dialog box, locate the Forms Data File (.fdf) previously saved and click Select. In the next pop-up box, click Yes. The comments are restored.

Restoring form fields

To restore form fields:

• Open the original PDF file that includes form fields.
• In Acrobat 6, 7, 8 and 9, select Tools > Advanced Editing > Select Object tool.
  (In Acrobat X and XI, select Tools > Forms > Edit)
• The form fields will appear, do a Control-A to select all the form fields.
• Open the new distilled PDF file which has no form fields.
• Do a Control-V to paste all the form fields onto the page.

You may need to reposition the fields by selecting them again with the Select Object Tool and moving them to the correct position. For multi-page forms you must do this for each page separately.

This message could mean any of the following:

• The document contains form fields which may have been updated or changed automatically.
• The document contains JavaScript which may have altered the document.
• Acrobat may have found errors in the PDF file and attempted to fix the errors.

The saved document should work with our products without errors. If you still encounter problems after saving the file, send it along with the product name and version you are using and any error messages that occurred to support@appligent.com.

We generally suggest PDF creation using Acrobat Distiller or PDF Maker.

The differences between Acrobat Forms (AcroForms) and XML Forms Architecture (XFA) also know as LiveCycle forms are as follows:

AcroForms are the original PDF forms technology, first introduced in 1998. AcroForms accept input in both Forms Data Format (FDF) and XML Forms Data Format (XFDF). Many 3rd party vendors support AcroForms.

Adobe’s acquisition of Accelio in 2003 brought that company’s XFA forms technology to Adobe, where it is made available via Acrobat LiveCycle Designer. XFA forms are inherently XML rather than PDF, and are incompatible with conventional PDF files. XFA forms “break” Adobe’s Acrobat software, in the sense that Acrobat cannot be used to modify a LiveCycle Designer-created document. XFA forms are not yet fully supported by third party PDF viewers’ vendors. Currently Adobe LiveCycle server software is required to process XFA forms in a server environment.

AcroForms have capabilities not found in XFA and conversely XFA has some capabilities not found in AcroForms.  For example:

• AcroForms support the concept of “Templates”, allowing additional pages to be added to the PDF form document to support populating the form with multiple database records.
• XFA supports the concept of document reflow allowing a field to resize if needed to accommodate data.

For more information on the specific differences between AcroForms and XFA forms, see the original Appligent white paper: A Quick Introduction to Acrobat Forms Technology (PDF).

Like XML, an FDF file is a structured text file. And like XML, FDF can be easily created.  Simple examples of both FDF and XFDF can be found here: Forms Data Format.

Forms Data Format is part of the international standard for the Portable Document Format (PDF) and is fully documented in ISO-32000 “Document management — Portable document format — Part 1: PDF 1.7”

• In Acrobat 5, Edit Menu > Preferences > Click on Updates in the left side column > Check for Updates – three choices, Every Week, Every Month or Manually. You also have an option to Update Acrobat Now
• In Acrobat 6, Edit Menu > Preferences > Click on Updates in the left side column > Check for Updates – choose Monthly
• In Acrobat 7, Edit Menu > Click on Updates in the left side column > Under Update and Notification, Check choose either Notify me of critical updates and Notify me before installing.
• In Acrobat 8 and 9, X, and XI Help Menu > Check for Updates… The updater will run automatically. You can set preferences by Clicking on Preferences and then checking Automatically check for Adobe updates and choosing Monthly. Select either “Download updates automatically and notify me when they are ready to be installed”, or “Ask me before downloading any updates and then notify me when they are ready to be installed.” Then click Quit when finished.

Unfortunately, there is no way to disable the Save As function in Acrobat.  However, you can encrypt the document with permissions not allowing users to make changes to the document.

• Acrobat 5 – File->Print->Under the “Print Range” section, check “Comments”
• Acrobat 6 – File->Print->Under the “Print What” section, select “Document and Comments”
• Acrobat 7, 8, 9, X and XI – File->Print->Under the “Comment and Forms” section, select “Document and Stamps”

If you have many PDF documents that are rotated, you can use the AdobePDF printer and batch processing in Acrobat to turn off the rotation. The following are the steps you need to take to set this up:

• First, you need to set AdobePDF as the default printer. Choose the Control Panel > Printers and Right click on the AdobePDF printer and set as default.

• While in this screen, right click on AdobePDF and choose “Printing Preferences”.

• Click on the tab “Adobe PDF Settings.” Look for “Default Settings” and click on Edit to the right of the field.

• The Adobe PDFSettings window will open. On the General tab, set Auto-Rotate Pages to “Off” by selecting the arrow at the right of the field, then hit OK.

• Next look for “Adobe PDF Output Folder,” click on “Browse” and look for the directory where you want to place the new files. Then click on Apply and hit OK.

• Now open Acrobat. Go to the Advanced Menu and choose Batch Processing – if using Acrobat 6 or 7. If using Acrobat 8 or 9, go to the Advanced Menu > Document Processing and choose Batch Processing.In Acrobat X and XI, go to Tools > Action Wizard.

– Select “Create New Action”
– Click on  “More Tools” to expand the options
– Select “Print”

– Under “Start With”, select an option from the drop down list
– Under “Save To”, select an option from the drop down list, Hit Save
– In the “Save Action” dialog, enter a name for this action, such as “Print”
– This action will now appear under the Action Wizard

You must have Acrobat Standard or Professional installed on your computer to use the Distiller that is provided with Acrobat.  Appligent’s pdfHarmony application also allows you to remove rotation in a file.

There are times when PDF files will not process correctly with our software. This is generally due to “malformed” PDF files that have been created by software other than Adobe’s Distiller. We suggest that you run problem files through Distiller as a way to “clean” them up. Listed below are instructions for running your file through Distiller.

• Open your file in Acrobat
• Choose File > Save As from the Acrobat menu
• Give the file a new name (do not overwrite the original file)
• Under Save As Type, choose PostScript File (*.ps)
• Open the Acrobat Distiller and browse for this file or go to the directory where the file exists and double click on the file – this will open and run the Distiller
• A new PDF file will be created with the new name you gave the PostScript file.

Distiller is provided with a purchase of Acrobat Standard or Professional.  Appligent’s pdfHarmony application has an option to rewrite pages in a pdf document that may clean up any issues.

Comments and annotations are not actually part of the PDF page content; but, sit in a layer over the PDF page.  Different PDF viewers have a variety of printing options for printing comments and annotations.  Following is where to find these printing options under different versions of Adobe Acrobat:

• Acrobat 5 – File->Print->Under the “Print Range” section, check “Comments”
• Acrobat 6 – File->Print->Under the “Print What” section, select “Document and Comments”
• Acrobat 7, 8, 9, X,  and XI – File->Print->Under the “Comment and Forms” section, select “Document and Markups “

Some applications will create PDFs that are rotated. You can remove the rotation by creating a new PDF with the Distiller. Take the following steps:

• Open your file in Acrobat
• Choose File > Save As from the Acrobat menu
• Give the file a new name (do not overwrite the original file)
• Under Save As Type, choose PostScript File (*.ps)
• Open Acrobat Distiller
• Go to Settings > Edit Adobe PDF Settings > set Default Page size to PDF page size and Auto-rotate Pages to off.
• Browse for this file or go to the directory where the file exists and double click on the file – this will open and run the Distiller
• A new PDF file will be created with the new name you gave the PostScript file.

Distiller is provided with a purchase of Acrobat Standard or Professional. Appligent’s pdfHarmony application also allows you to remove rotation in a file.

Redax and StampPDF Plug-in are both plug-ins for Adobe Acrobat and are only available on Windows. 

Membership in the Support & Maintenance Program includes unlimited technical support via phone or e-mail along
with free product upgrades that are released within your 12 month coverage period. 

Our sales team will email you before your expiration date and will provide the cost to maintain your support for an additional 12 months.  If you find that your support has expired, please email sales@appligent.com to request a quote for updating your support term. 

All of our software can be purchased from our web store at https://appligent.onfastspring.com/.

You can also email sales@appligent.com to request assistance. 

There are two options for reporting on Redax boxes & Full Page Tags.

Redax Menu > Reports > Redax Report to File.  This option will write all the information to a text file

Redax Menu > Reports > Redax Report to Window.  A window will pop up inside of Acrobat that lists all the Redax boxes and Full Page Tags in the document, by page number.  You can scroll through the list of boxes and Full Page Tags. If you click on a particular line in the window, it will take you to that page in the document where the Redax box or Full Page Tag is located.

To make these changes, choose the menu option: Redax > Redax Preferences … The Preferences dialog window will open. Make your desired changes for Redax boxes and then choose “Apply to Current Document.” A new dialog box will appear, you have the option to save your changes, make adjustments or cancel. If you are changing exemption codes, be sure to check the box next to “Exemption,” which is unchecked by default.

You need to make sure that your printing preferences are set to allow printing Comments/Markups.

• Acrobat 5 – File > Print > Under the “Print Range” section, check “Comments”
• Acrobat 6 – File > Print > Under the “Print What” section, select “Document and Comments
• Acrobat 7, 8 9, X and XI – File > Print > Under the “Comment and Forms” section, select “Document and Markups”

The Preference “Allow Redaction Without Exemption” is not checked. Check this by choosing Redax Menu > Redax Preferences, then choose the Options Tab and check the box there.

Would you like the support team to address a specific point related to this topic? Email the support team and ask for a clarification.

Redax has the ability to redact areas that are marked up using Acrobat’s highlight, strikeout and underline tool. All other annotations can not be redacted using Redax. Redax offers a Remove All Annotations menu option. It Deletes All Annotations from a PDF document, all Redax boxes, exemption codes and any other annotations, such as Acrobat notes or those added by other plug-ins. Redax 4.6 and higher can redact Acrobat 8, and all subsequent versions, including XI redaction markup.

Yes.  Redax can remove form fields and the information stored within form fields.  From the Redax Menu > Remove All Form Fields

Yes. Redax supports the redaction of Vector Graphics. Please note, that if a Redax box intersects a part of an area that is a vector graphic, the entire graphic will be redacted.

You need to select the exemption code on the left side of the window first before adding your word/phrase on the right side of the dialog.  Please click here to view a video that demonstrates how to use Find Using List.

As a Redax user, you probably know that it includes a variety of built in patterns to find and mark text for redaction. Standard patterns include Social Security numbers, different date formats, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and more. To see all the available patterns, just go to the Redax menu and select Find Using Pattern. You can choose from a list of 23 patterns.

To find all Social Security numbers in a document, select Find Using Pattern then select Social Security Number from the list of inactive Pattern Groups, then click the center arrow to have it appear in the list of Active Pattern Groups. Move as many patterns as you wish to use into the Active Patterns Groups list. When you click OK, Redax will find the patterned information you specified in the list. With regard to SSNs, the pattern found will be 9 digit numbers in typical SSN formats (123456789, XXX-XX-XXXX, etc.)

See also: Marking text that matches a pattern

If you need a different pattern search than those provided, you can write a custom pattern as a Regular Expression.

For example, Redax includes a pattern for finding dates such as March 15, 1976, but what if you wanted to find all years? You could use the Regular Expression:

19[0-9] {2}

This means the number 19 followed by a digit from 0 to 9, twice. Therefore it would find all years from 1900 to 1999.

Appendix A of the Redax documentation gives a good overview of how to write a Regular Expression. RegexMagic and RegexBuddy,both from JustGreat Software Co. Ltd., can make it easier for you to develop regular expressions. RegexMagic helps you describe text patterns without requiring you to learn the technology behind regular expressions. RegexBuddy requires a little more interest and aptitude in learning the technology of regular expressions but helps guide you along the technology path. For more information on either of these, please see RegexMagic or RegexBuddy.

There are different descriptions and implementations of regular expressions. Redax uses the International components for Unicode (ICU) User Guide for Regular Expressions.

Other resources for Regular Expressions include:

• RegExLib, a regular expressions catalog
• Wikipedia: regular expression

We are happy to help. If you have problems writing your Regular Expressions, please call or e-mail our Support team. Help with regular expressions is included with your yearly paid support & maintenance for Redax.

The Acrobat markup that Redax can redact is Highlight, Strikethrough, Underline, as well as Acrobat’s redaction tools. Redax 5.8 can also redact markups drawn with the rectangle tool in Reader and Acrobat.  It does not include the drawing markups under the commenting tool bar.

In some instances Redax has been known to remove more text than what has been selected. Save a copy of your marked-up PDF, then reduce the size of any Redax box that touches other text areas and try redacting the document again.

At times under Acrobat 6, it appears that the original file has been redacted. This is a window update bug. You need to refresh the window (go from one page and come back) in order for original file to appear correct.

Redax has a built in Palette Editor which makes it easy for you to create your own exemption codes (Redax Menu > Edit Palettes). Detailed instructions on using the Palette Editor are in the Using Exemption Code Palettes section of the User Guide.

You can set an exemption code in the “Exemption” area under Redax preferences so that this code is applied to every box drawn within the document.  Redax Menu > Redax Preferences > Redax Box Preferences

This can be accomplished by generating two redacted PDFs from the same original, as follows:

First, check “Allow Redaction Without Exemption” under Preferences and then apply the Redax boxes in the desired locations. This will generate a new, redacted PDF, sans exemption codes, meeting the printing needs.

Second, return to the original PDF, still containing the Redax boxes not yet containing exemption codes. Now apply the desired exemption codes to the existing Redax boxes. After selecting Redact Document, a second redacted PDF is generated, this one meeting the screen needs.

You need to select the exemption code on the left side of the window first before adding your word/phrase on the right side of the dialog.  Please click here to view a video that demonstrates how to use Find Using List.

As a Redax user, you probably know that it includes a variety of built in patterns to find and mark text for redaction. Standard patterns include Social Security numbers, different date formats, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and more. To see all the available patterns, just go to the Redax menu and select Find Using Pattern. You can choose from a list of 23 patterns.

To find all Social Security numbers in a document, select Find Using Pattern then select Social Security Number from the list of inactive Pattern Groups, then click the center arrow to have it appear in the list of Active Pattern Groups. Move as many patterns as you wish to use into the Active Patterns Groups list. When you click OK, Redax will find the patterned information you specified in the list. With regard to SSNs, the pattern found will be 9 digit numbers in typical SSN formats (123456789, XXX-XX-XXXX, etc.)

See also: Marking text that matches a pattern

If you need a different pattern search than those provided, you can write a custom pattern as a Regular Expression.

For example, Redax includes a pattern for finding dates such as March 15, 1976, but what if you wanted to find all years? You could use the Regular Expression:

19[0-9] {2}

This means the number 19 followed by a digit from 0 to 9, twice. Therefore it would find all years from 1900 to 1999.

Appendix A of the Redax documentation gives a good overview of how to write a Regular Expression. RegexMagic and RegexBuddy,both from JustGreat Software Co. Ltd., can make it easier for you to develop regular expressions. RegexMagic helps you describe text patterns without requiring you to learn the technology behind regular expressions. RegexBuddy requires a little more interest and aptitude in learning the technology of regular expressions but helps guide you along the technology path. For more information on either of these, please see RegexMagic or RegexBuddy.

There are different descriptions and implementations of regular expressions. Redax uses the International components for Unicode (ICU) User Guide for Regular Expressions.

Other resources for Regular Expressions include:

• RegExLib, a regular expressions catalog
• Wikipedia: regular expression

We are happy to help. If you have problems writing your Regular Expressions, please call or e-mail our Support team. Help with regular expressions is included with your yearly paid support & maintenance for Redax.

You may have closed out the windows or moved them off the screen. To make them reappear, go to the Redax Menu > Show/Hide > Display All Palettes.  If you only wish to display one Palette window, click on that Palette name in the list.

Note:  If you have any custom palettes, you will want to back them up before uninstalling Redax.

Redax version 3.8: Back up the file C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat X.0\Acrobat\plug_ins\palettes.txt

Redax version 4.0 and above: Export your palettes from the Redax palettes dialog.

See Importing & Exporting palettes for more information. You will able to import these palettes files into new/other versions of Redax.

Before manually removing Redax, try uninstalling Redax under Windows Add/Remove programs.

ANSWER:

To manually remove Redax, browse to the plug-ins directory:

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat X.0\Acrobat\plug_ins.

If you are running a 64 bit version of windows, use:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat X.0\Acrobat\plug_ins.

Redax 3.8:

• Remove Redax32.api from the plug-ins directory
• Remove Redax.pdf from the plug-ins directory
• Remove palettes.txt from the plug-ins directory
• Remove redaxplugin.arn from the plug-ins directory

Redax 4.x:

• Remove Redax32.api from the plug-ins directory
• Remove the preferences file Redax.pdf.
• Remove Redax.pdf from the plug-ins directory if present.
  Redax.pdf may also be located in your application data directory.
  XP: C:\Documents and Settings\YourName\Application Data\
  Vista & Windows 7: C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\
  Check the following subdirectories in the application data directory for Redax.pdf.
  Adobe\Acrobat\X.0\Preferences
  Appligent\Preferences
• Remove the license file, redaxplugin.arn from the plug-ins directory if present

Redax 5.x

• Remove Redax32.api from the plug-ins/Appligent directory
• Remove the preferences file Redax.pdf.
• Remove Redax.pdf from the plug-ins directory if present.
  Redax.pdf may also be located in your application date directory.
  XP: C:\Documents and Settings\YourName\Application Data\
  Vista & Windows 7: C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\
  Check the following subdirectories in the application data directory for Redax.pdf.
  Adobe\Acrobat\X.0\Preferences
  Appligent\Preferences
• Remove the following icu dlls from the plugins directory:
        icudt40.dll icuin40.dll icuio40.dll icule40.dll
        iculx40.dll icutu40.dll icuuc40.dll

Would you like the support team to address a specific point related to this topic? Email the support team and ask for a clarification.

Redax will place the word “demo” in the redacted areas and a demo watermark will appear on the page if you have an evaluation copy of the software.

If you purchase Redax after your evaluation, you need to enter the “live” registration number so Redax will no longer run in “Demo” mode.

To register go to the Redax menu > Enter Redax Registration Number. . . The Redax Registration screen will open for you to enter the registration number. You must have Administrator privileges to register Redax.

If you are running Redax 5.7, you will need to uninstall and then reinstall Redax.  There is no option from the Redax Menu to enter the registration number in this version.

If Redax does not appear, most likely Acrobat is set to “Certified Mode”. The “Certified Mode” option began with Acrobat 6 and is also an option of Acrobat 7, 8, and 9. Certified Mode is intended to restrict any third party plug-in from running under Acrobat. Certified Mode is usually checked when you install Acrobat.

Take the following steps to turn off Certified Mode.

• Acrobat 6 – Go to the Edit Menu > Preferences > Startup – check if the “Use only certified plug-ins” is checked under “Application Startup.” If this box is checked, uncheck it, hit OK twice, close and reopen Acrobat.
• Acrobat 7 – Go to the Edit Menu > Preferences > General. Choose StartUp in the left column – check to see if you have “Use only certified plug-ins” checked under “Application Startup”. If this box is checked, uncheck it, hit OK twice, close and reopen Acrobat.
• Acrobat 8, 9, X & XI – Go to the Edit Menu > Preferences. Choose General in the left column – check to see if you have “Use only certified plug-ins” checked under “Application Startup”. If this box is checked, uncheck it, hit OK twice, close and reopen Acrobat.

If you continue to have problems with Redax Plug-in, then you should take one of the following steps:

Choose Help > Detect and Repair, or Repair Acrobat Installation, depending upon which version of Acrobat you are using. The Redax menu should appear when you reopen Acrobat.

If that step does not work, then you need to uninstall and reinstall Acrobat. Follow the steps to turn Certified Mode off and then reinstall the Redax.

Would you like the support team to address a specific point related to this topic? Email the support team and ask for a clarification.

Since Redax is compatible under all versions of Windows, what matters more is the version of Acrobat you are running.

Redax 5.6 is compatible under Acrobat 8, 9, 10 & 11.

Redax 5.7 is compatible under Acrobat DC only.

Redax 5.8 is compatible under Acrobat DC, 2017 and 2020.

If you need to upgrade your version of Redax, please contact sales@appligent.com.

Verify that you have the full version of Adobe Acrobat Standard or Professional installed on your computer, not just the Adobe Reader.

Would you like the support team to address a specific point related to this topic? Email the support team and ask for a clarification.

Because text in a scanned document is stored as a bitmapped image within the PDF document, searching for phrases within scanned documents will not work unless the scanned document has been processed with OCR (optical character recognition) software. OCR-scanned images have readable text behind the image that can be searched. The success of a search depends upon the quality of the OCR software.

You can change the setting for your mouse which makes it easier to find the location of the Redax cursor/crosshair.  Open the Control Panel > Click on Ease of Access > Change how your mouse works > Click on the Porter Options > Click Show location of pointer when I press the CTRL key.  With this preference set, you can then click on the CTRL key while working with Redax and it will “highlight” the cursor.

The document interface on Windows was changed in Acrobat 8 to a single document interface (SDI) which displays each document in a single top-level floating window.

Redax will only function in the multiple document interface (MDI) which can be re-enabled via the preferences panel. Change the preferences by:

1. Start Acrobat.
2. Choose Edit -> Preferences
3. Choose “Documents” from the column on the left side of the dialog window.
4. At the top of the Open Settings, uncheck “Show each document in its own window (requires restart).”
5. Close and restart Acrobat.

All Appligent products support PDF file versions 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7 and above.

Please view the table below for version compatibility between Redax and Acrobat.

The problem can happen when the Windows dialog is set to large. To correct this, please do the following:

Go to Control Panel > Display > Medium.

You may also need to change the Custom Text Size.  Go to Control Panel > Display > Set Custom Text Size > Scale to this percentage of normal size > 100%

One these settings are adjusted, you will need to reboot your machine in order for the changes to take place.

If you choose “Single Stamp” or “New Stamp File” menu options, then there is a 255 character limit. It allows you to type over 255 characters in the Text Box, but it will only stamp 255 characters.

The workaround for this 255 limit is to open the existing stamp file in a text editor and add the additional text within the text parameter value, then stamp using the “Stamp Using File” menu option.

Example:

Text (Text parameter value…type all your text within the brackets)

If you need help modifying your stamp file to workaround this limit, please contact our technical support department, 610-284-4006 or support@appligent.com.

There is no limit on the amount of stamps you can make per document.

StampPDF Batch and StampPDF Desktop Edition do not have a character limit set on the amount of characters it can stamp at one time. The limit is only a problem with the plug-in.

There are some circumstances in which the combination of the source creation application and the printer driver will draw a white rectangle behind the text of the PDF document page. In this case an underlaid stamp will be obscured by the white rectangle. The work-around is to stamp the document with an overlaid stamp of outline text. Choosing a shade of gray or other light color will further help to prevent obscuring effects of an overlaid stamp.

This circumstance also occurs if you stamp underlay on any page that is a known image. When viewing the document, Acrobat draws the stamp first, then the image on top of it, making it look like the stamp flashed and disappeared.

There is a known intermittent problem with stamping lower case characters with the Base 14 fonts Symbol and Zapf Dingbats. No problems have occurred with the use of upper case characters in these fonts.

If you stamp a PDF file and then page through the document and do not see the stamp on every page, Acrobat is probably using its Page Cache to display the pages. You can prevent this by taking the following steps:

• Acrobat 6 & 7 – Choose Edit > Preferences. Then select Startup from the Categories list on the left. In the Opening Documents section, uncheck the box next to Use Page Cache and click OK.
• Acrobat 8 & 9 – Choose Edit > Preferences. Then choose Page Display from the categories list on the left. In the Rendering section, uncheck the box next to Use page cache and click OK
• Acrobat X – Choose Acrobat > Preferences. Then choose Page Display from the categories list on the left. In the Rendering section, uncheck the box next to Use page cache and click OK
• Acrobat XI – Choose Edit > Preferences. Then choose Page Display from the categories list on the left. In the Rendering section, uncheck the box next to Use page cache and click OK

Close and reopen Acrobat to load the new preference setting. Any changes you make to pages in the PDF will appear now as you page through the document.

StampPDF Plug-in uses a built-in variable for Bates Numbering.  In the stamp dialog, click on the down arrow next to “Codes” and select “Bates Number” from the list,  then hit the “Insert” button.  The variable will appear above in the “Text” field as %J. If you would like to start numbering at a number other than 000001, place the number to start in between the % sign and the J. For example, to start numbering at page 000501, use %501J in the Text parameter. StampPDF Plug-in will insert the leading zeros.

Three separate stamps are needed. This can be done within one stamp file by following the steps below. In Acrobat go to Document > New Stamp File. The “New Stamp File” dialog will open, enter information as described in the steps below.

1. Enter information as follows for the first stamp, which is for pages 1 through 9:

Stamp text = 00%g
Page range settings:
Start = 1
End = 9

2. Hit the Add button (located at the middle of the dialog’s left side)

3. Enter information as follows for the second stamp, which is for pages 10 through 99:

Stamp text = 0%g
Page range settings:
Start = 10
End = 99

4. Hit the Add button again

5. Enter information as follows for the third stamp, which is for pages 100 through 999:

Stamp text = %g
Page range settings:
Start = 100
End = 999

6. Once you have completed the steps above, hit the Stamp button

7. A dialog titled “Save stamp file as:” will open

8. Assign the stamp file a location and name

9. Hit the Save button

To stamp a Page (Bates) number you would use the variable %g (%J). To start numbering from a number other than 1, type the number in-between the % sign and the letter g (J).

Example:

%2g

starts stamping with the page number 2.

Example:

%15J

starts stamping with the Bates number 000015.

The “Certified Mode” option began with Acrobat 6 and is also part of all subsequent versions, including XI. Certified Mode is available only for Adobe plug-ins to Acrobat. Third party plug-ins will not appear on the Acrobat menu when Certified Mode is set to Yes. Certified Mode is usually set to Yes when you install Acrobat. You must turn off Certified Mode for the StampPDF to appear on the Document menu of Acrobat in versions 6, 7 and 8. Correct this by taking the steps described in the answer to Why doesn’t StampPDF appear under the Document Menu.

If you are using Acrobat 9, X, or XI Certified Mode is unchecked, but is really set to YES until a third party plug-in is installed, so you just need to install StampPDF.

At times the steps above may not correct the problem even though the certified plug-ins box is not checked. Then you should take one of the following steps:

• Choose Help > Detect and Repair, or Repair Acrobat Installation, depending upon which version of Acrobat you are using.
• If that step does not work, then you need to uninstall and reinstall Acrobat. Follow the steps to turn Certified Mode off and then install the StampPDF.

You must remove the encryption/security settings on the PDF file before stamping the document with StampPDF Plug-n.  Security would need to be added again after stamping.

StampPDF 2.7 is supported under Acrobat 5, 6, and 7.  StampPDF 2.7 was released in 2001 and is not supported under Acrobat 8.  

StampPDF 5.0.5 is the current shipping version of the plug-in and supports Acrobat 7, and all subsequent versions, including Acrobat 8, 9, X and XI.

If you would like to upgrade, please contact our Sales Department.

If you are running StampPDF Plug-in in “Demo” mode and have a purchased registration number, Open Acrobat > Go to the Document Menu > Click on the last menu option “Enter Stamp Serial Number”.

.

All Appligent products support PDF file versions 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7 and above.

If StampPDF does not appear in Acrobat, then most likely Acrobat is set to “Certified Mode”. The “Certified Mode” option began with Acrobat 6.  Certified Mode is intended to restrict any third party plug-in from running under Acrobat. Certified Mode is usually checked when you install Acrobat.

Take the following steps to turn off Certified Mode.

• Acrobat 6 – Go to the Edit Menu > Preferences > Startup – check if the “Use only certified plug-ins” is checked under “Application Startup.” If this box is checked, uncheck it, hit OK twice, close and reopen Acrobat.
• Acrobat 7 – Go to the Edit Menu > Preferences > General. Choose StartUp in the left column – check to see if you have “Use only certified plug-ins” checked under “Application Startup”. If this box is checked, uncheck it, hit OK twice, close and reopen Acrobat.
• Acrobat 8, 9, X & XI – Go to the Edit Menu > Preferences. Choose General in the left column – check to see if you have “Use only certified plug-ins” checked under “Application Startup”. If this box is checked, uncheck it, hit OK twice, close and reopen Acrobat.

If you continue to have problems with StampPDF Plug-in, then you should take one of the following steps:

Choose Help > Detect and Repair, or Repair Acrobat Installation, depending upon which version of Acrobat you are using. The StampPDF menu should appear when you reopen Acrobat.

If that step does not work, then you need to uninstall and reinstall Acrobat. Follow the steps to turn Certified Mode off and then reinstall the StampPDF.

Yes. StampPDF Batch has the ability to stamp an encrypted document. The PDF file must have an owner password set and this password must be supplied using -d (owner password).

There is no way to omit the .pdf extension when using the Variable %N to stamp the file name.

Yes, StampPDF Batch version 3.0 and higher supports the use of three PDF color spaces: RGB, CMYK and Grayscale.

StampPDF Batch 5.2 and higher supports the use of Adobe Type 1 Postscript fonts, OpenType, TrueType and Barcode fonts.

PDF/A requires all fonts to be embedded. StampPDF Batch allows you to embed the fonts or use Base 14 fonts. To maintain the document as PDF/A, you will need to use Type 1 fonts instead of Base 14 fonts.

The LinkURL parameter specifies a URL link to be associated with a stamp. You need to include the LinkURL parameter in the stamp file for text stamps.  Example below:

LinkURL   (http://www.appligent.com/docs.appligent.com)

Note: If you wish to apply a LinkURL to a JPEG or TIFF image, you must create two stamp items in your stamp file. The first stamp item must be the image and the second stamp item must be the LinkURL you wish to stamp on the image.

Yes, StampPDF Batch supports the stamping of standard or PhotoShop JPEG, TIFF and PDF images.

By default, StampPDF Batch applies a six-digit Bates number. However, you can use the -j option to allow you to specify the number of digits for Bates numbering. Here is an example:

stamppdf -p -j 4 -o outfile.pdf stamp.txt input.pdf.

The above will apply a four-digit Bates number.

The flag, -optimize, can reduce the file size in most cases. Listed below are the functions of what the -optimize flag does:

• encode any non-encoded streams using Flate compression
• remove ASCII85 filters from all streams
• replace LZW encoded streams with Flate encoding
• merge identical XObjects and images
• optimize common sequences in page content
• merge identical font descriptors and encodings

When stamping using position and justification:

Set the position, justification and scale parameters. Coordinates should not be specified for the stamp item.

When stamping images with coordinates you can specify the size one of two ways. Position and justification parameters should not be set when stamping with coordinates.

Specify the bottom and left coordinates and a scale factor. The default value for scale is 1. You should not specify top and right coordinates when using this method.

Specify all four coordinates (top, bottom, left, right). The image will be scaled in the area you specify. The scale factor is ignored.

There is a limit of 500 stamps per parameter file. Split the parameter file and stamp each smaller parameter file individually.

There are two additional environment variables that need to be set for StampPDF Batch on all UNIX platforms. If these variables are not set, you will receive the message “error while loading shared libraries. libDLXXpdfl.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory.”

The first environmental variable that needs to be set is APPLIGENT_HOME. This stores the location of the Appligent home directory. The default location for the Appligent home directory is /usr/local/appligent. The Appligent home directory contains the library files and resources needed to run StampPDF Batch. It also contains license information for StampPDF Batch.

Example for setting this variable:

export APPLIGENT_HOME=/usr/local/appligent

The second environmental variable is:

LD_LIBRARY_PATH

on UNIX (except AIX, see below). The APDFL library path must be added to the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable. The APDFL library path is located in a subdirectory of the APPLIGENT_HOME directory.

The path should be set to:

${APPLIGENT_HOME}/APDFLX.X.X/Libs

Example for setting the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}:${APPLIGENT_HOME}/APDFLX.X.X/Libs

FOR AIX USERS ONLY!

The environmental variable is LIBPATH. The APDFL library path is located in a subdirectory of the APPLIGENT_HOME directory. The path should be set to:

${APPLIGENT_HOME}/APDFLX.X.X/Libs

Example for setting the LIBPATH variable:

export LIBPATH=${LIBPATH}:${APPLIGENT_HOME}/APDFLX.X.X/Libs

StampPDF Batch returns the following numerical codes:

0 returns if:

• no errors occur

-1 returns under limited circumstances:

• If a poorly formed command was used
• If an evaluation version of the product has expired
• If you use only -v on your command line

1 (or greater) returns if a problem occurs with processing

The error codes are consistent with Adobe Acrobat’s standards when such errors occur. A description of the error can be found in the automatically generated error file.

StampPDF Batch directly supports a variety of 1 and 2D barcodes. But if you need to, you can purchase some barcode fonts from myFonts.com

Important: You will need to purchase the Windows version of the fonts regardless of the platform you are using.

If you add the PDF file on the command line before the stamp file, you will receive this error message.  The stamp file must appear first on the command line before the name of the PDF file you are stamping.

Missing or overlapped characters usually indicates a problem with the fonts in your PDF file, such as embedded subsetted fonts, TrueType fonts or fonts which have been manipulated in some way. To resolve this issue you can run the original file through Distiller or try stamping with a different font.

Check that your stamp file contains the following parameters:

begin_options
Version (2)
end_options

The version parameter is required in a stamp file. If it is omitted, the first page of your PDF file will not be stamped.

Yes. APCrypt can change security options on any PDF file with an owner password. The owner of the document can change the password and permission settings of a previously encrypted PDF document.

APCrypt also has the ability to completely remove security settings by supplying the -remove flag along with the -d <owner password> on the command line.