Back to START Page

Using Raymond
Electronic Manuals
Creating and Managing Electronic Comments

MISC-0052 Issued: 2/07/03

Using Raymond Electronic Manuals Creating and Managing Electronic Comments

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
System Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Acrobat versus Acrobat Reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Types of Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Using the Note Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Adding a Comment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Using the Comments Palette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
To show or hide the Comments Palette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
To view or hide the Comments Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
To navigate using Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Importing and Exporting Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Importing Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Exporting Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Collating Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

MISC-0052 Issued: 2/07/03 1

Using Raymond Electronic Manuals Creating and Managing Electronic Comments

Introduction

Introduction
The Raymond Corporation and our customers
are realizing the benefits that electronic
manuals can provide. In addition to making
distribution easier and less expensive, other
features of electronic manuals can increase the
value of the supplied information.
Tools such as easy search capabilities on
keywords and the ability to store and manage
electronic comments are only possible in
electronic documents.
This document explains how to create and
manage electronic comments to help maximize
the effectiveness of Raymond Electronic
Manuals (for example: Raymond Electronic
Parts and Service Bulletin/Product
Improvement Notice Catalogs).
Adobe Acrobat ® provides a means for marking
up text and attaching notes and commentaries
to Portable Document Format (PDF) documents.
Instead of attaching sticky notes to a paper
document, electronic comments can be added
to a PDF document. These notes and comments
can be in text, graphic, or audio format; you
can even attach external files if you like.
Comments and markups can be imported and
exported from a PDF document.

MISC-0052 Issued: 2/07/03 1

Creating and Managing Electronic Comments Using Raymond Electronic Manuals

Introduction

System Requirements
Software
Adobe Acrobat 5.0 or higher.
Microsoft Windows ® 95 OSR 2.0, Windows 98,
Windows Millennium Edition, Windows NT ®*
4.0 with Service Pack 5 or 6, Windows 2000, or
Windows XP (recommended upgrade procedure)
*Internet Explorer 4.0.1 or later required for
Windows NT users

Acrobat versus Acrobat Reader

Adobe Acrobat enables you to create and
manage PDF documents and must be
purchased. For more information go to
www.adobe.com.
Adobe Acrobat Reader™ allows PDF files to be
viewed and printed only...it has no electronic
comment or markup tool capabilities.
Acrobat Reader can be downloaded at no charge
from www.adobe.com.

Hardware
IBM compatible Personal Computer (PC) with
the following:
• Intel Pentium ® type processor
• 32 MB of RAM (64 MB recommended)
• 150 MB of available hard-disk space
• CD-ROM drive

2 MISC-0052 Issued: 2/07/03

Using Raymond Electronic Manuals Creating and Managing Electronic Comments

Introduction

Types of Tools
There are three types of comment and markup
tools available on the toolbar:
• comment
• graphic markup
• text markup
Each has a pull down tool menu. See Figure 1.
Use of these comment and markup authoring
tools is controlled by Acrobat Document
Security, which is set by the document author.
Comment Tool Markup Tool
If security is set to not allow the use of these Menu Menus
tools, the icons are dimmed and are not
selectable.

Figure 1: Comment and Markup Tool Pull Down Menus

Under the comment tool menu, the following
are found:
• Note Tool
• Free Text Tool
• Sound Attachment Tool
• Stamp Tool
• File Attachment Tool
All of these tools are available to the user,
however, only use of the Note Tool is addressed
in this publication. See Figure 2.
NOTE: For detailed information on the
comment and markup tools not covered
in this publication, refer to the Help 1

menu in the PDF document itself. Figure 2: Note Tool

MISC-0052 Issued: 2/07/03 3

Creating and Managing Electronic Comments Using Raymond Electronic Manuals

Using the Note Tool

Using the Note Tool

A note can be created on any page in a PDF
document and positioned anywhere on the
page. If you enter more text than will fit in the
window, the text scrolls. You can resize the
window, if desired.

Adding a Comment
1. Select the Note Tool. See Figure 2 on
page 3.
2. Click the location where you want to place
the note, or drag to create a custom-sized
window. The maximum size for the note
window is 288 pixels high and 432 pixels 2

wide. See Figure 3. Figure 3: Note Location

3. To set comment properties, select the

comment and choose:
Edit > Properties
OR right click on the colored bar across the
top of the note and select Properties from
the menu.
See Figure 4. Set the desired options:
• Select an icon to represent your type of
note. You can choose from Text Note,
Insert Text, Comment, New Paragraph,
Paragraph, Key, and Help.
• Specify an author name if you wish to
replace the default author name.
• Select a color for the note.
4. Click OK.
5. Click inside the window and type the text
for the note. See Figure 5.
3

Figure 4: Note Properties

6. Click the X in the upper left corner of the
window to close the note.

Figure 5: Note Window

4 MISC-0052 Issued: 2/07/03

Using Raymond Electronic Manuals Creating and Managing Electronic Comments

Using the Comments Palette

Using the Comments

Palette
The Comments palette lists the comments in a
document and sorts them by type, author, page
number, or creation date. The comment list
initially groups comments by page number.
Each comment displays its associated text next
to the comment icon. The text is also displayed
in a pop-up text box when the cursor is held
over the comment icon.

To show or hide the Comments

Palette
Click the Comments tab to display the
Comments palette. Click the Comments tab
again to hide the Comments palette. See
Figure 6.

To view or hide the Comments

Outline
To expand or collapse the comments outline, Comments Tab
click the plus sign (+) or the minus sign (–) next
to a comment.
To sort the list of comments, choose Type,
Author, Page, or Date from the palette menu.
See Figure 7.
5

Figure 6: Comments Tab

To navigate using Comments

Click a comment from the comment list. The
page on which the selected comment is located
appears in the document pane, and the
highlighted comment scrolls into view. To go to
the page where another comment is located,
simply click the comment from the list. The
comment is highlighted on the document page.

Figure 7: Comments Shown in Comments Palette

MISC-0052 Issued: 2/07/03 5

Creating and Managing Electronic Comments Using Raymond Electronic Manuals

Importing and Exporting Comments

Importing and Exporting

Comments
Comments can be exchanged between PDF
documents using the comments import and xxxxx.fdf
xxxx1.fdf
export features. Form Data Format (FDF) xxxx2.fdf
documents contain only comments, and not the FDF comment files
(read/write) PC w/Adobe Acrobat
document to which they were added. See
Figure 8. You cannot open and view FDF
documents on their own; you must import them Internal Hard
into your own copy of the original document. Drive import/export
When you import comments from another
document, they are added to your document in
the location corresponding to their original
xxxxx.pdf
location, page, and position. Importing xxxx1.pdf
comments does not affect the comments xxxx2.pdf
already in your document. This page matching PDF files (read only) on CD ROM
of comments on import provides for easy (example: Raymond Electronic Parts
correlation between documents. Catalog, Service Bulletins and
Product Improvement Notices)
7

Figure 8: Creating FDF Files

When you export comments, you can export all
the comments associated with a document, or USER 4

you can filter the comments and export a USER 3

selected group of comments. Exported USER 5
comments are placed in their original positions Parts

in a new empty FDF document. The new FDF Parts Catalog

document is much smaller than the original Catalog

Parts

PDF document because it contains only USER 2 Catalog

comments. The smaller file size makes it more

Using their own Parts Catalog CD, USERs 2-5
convenient to distribute by e-mail or other import .fdf file received from USER 1.
means. For more information on FDF Parts

documents, see the PDF Reference Manual, Catalog

which is available on the Adobe Web site

USER 1 exports comments to hard drive,
(www.adobe.com). creating .fdf file. Comments are distributed
to USERs 2-5 via email.

The reasons for importing or exporting PDF

USER 1
document comments varies among users. Parts

Catalog
Some examples include: 8

Figure 9: Exporting Comments to Other Users

• archiving comments from one user's
manual to supply to others. See Figure 9.
• furnishing feedback to the factory for
further informational development.

6 MISC-0052 Issued: 2/07/03

Using Raymond Electronic Manuals Creating and Managing Electronic Comments

Importing and Exporting Comments

Importing Comments
1. In the document you want to receive the
comments, select:
File > Import > Comments
OR choose Import from the palette menu.
2. Choose Acrobat (*.fdf or *.pdf) from the
Objects of type menu.
3. Select the name of the document with the
comments. The comment positioning
matches that of the file they were imported
from. Comments on mismatched pages are
not placed. Any existing comments in the
receiving file are unaltered.

Exporting Comments
1. In the document with the comments you
want to export, select:
File > Export > Comments
2. Go to the directory to which you want the
comments exported, and enter a filename
for the export document.
3. Click Save. An FDF file is created. The
comments maintain the same location and
position they occupied in the original file.

Collating Comments
Importing and exporting can be especially
useful when you need to collate comments from
several reviewers into one draft. First export
each set of comments into a new FDF
document. Then import the comments into the
draft (from the new documents), one at a time.
Once imported, you can use the Comments
Filter Manager to organize the comments. For
more information, refer to the Help menu in the
PDF document itself.

MISC-0052 Issued: 2/07/03 7

Creating and Managing Electronic Comments Using Raymond Electronic Manuals

Importing and Exporting Comments

8 MISC-0052 Issued: 2/07/03