Adobe Acrobat TechTip #3: Commenting & Markup Options for Law Firms

Sometimes it takes a bunch of people collaborating on a document to finalize it and get it out. Often, with the firms that we work with, there are many revisions to a document before it is finalized may it be a contract, patent office action or any other type of legal document. While some use the Adobe Comment section to aid in document changes, others have never tried this method, thus not taking full advantage of Adobe Acrobat Pro. In this post, we’ll explain some Adobe Pro fundamental functions that will help you collaborate on documents using Adobe comment functions. Please keep in mind that this post deals with Adobe Pro not Reader. While Pro supports all kinds of comment and markup functionality, Reader only supports the sticky note and highlight text functions which may work just as well as Pro’s added functions for some. They can be found in the same place under the Comment section of Adobe Reader.

Any standard PDF file should accept comments and markups. If you do not see a toolbar at the top right of your Adobe Acrobat Pro window showing, “Tools | Comment | Share”, simply go to View on the top left of your Window, click Comment>Annotations. The toolbar will then show up.

You’ll see that the annotation functionality is really easy and self explanatory. Just to go over a few things, the strike-through and replace options are very helpful. This is the T with the blue line through it and the T with the red line. Simply click the function you want to use and then highlight the text that you want to strike-through. After your highlight is done for strike-through, you will see a red line through the text indicating to the editor to delete these words. In the case of Replace, once the highlighting is done, you will be asked to insert new text in the place of the old text. In this way, your admin, an attorney or a secretary can see these markups and change the document accordingly.

You can also add comments to the text as well. Using the T with the yellow comic bubble gives you the ability to comment on a line. We see below that there is a question of accuracy when explaining a CLE course’s time. In this way the editor is advised of this new information and can edit the document accordingly.

When talking about Markups, you have the ability to either markup a document freehand with the pencil icon, or you can use shapes to show points of interest. One of the most highly used markup functions are the arrow and the Add Text Callout functions (Second from the top left). With these functions you can zero in on document changes and callout other changes that you want to be known by your editor. Annotations can do this as well, it’s really all up to the reader and their editing style.

Some more advanced functionality has to do with the Stamp function under Annotations. With this, you can date documents, add “Sign Here” stamps for fillable forms & label as approved or confidential. It adds a lot more substance to a simple PDF file, this functionality makes a file into a professional secure document.

Take advantage of this functionality within Adobe Acrobat Pro. It’s useful and pretty easy for you and your office staff to learn. Why go back and forth editing a document multiple times when you can do it once and be done. Successful law firms look for technology to help them shave hours off of their work load, utilize their office staff to their full potential and increase firm productivity. This functionality does all that and more. Give it a try.