by Laura Acklen
www.wpwriter.com

It is not surprising that PDF (Adobe® Portable Document Format) has emerged as the standard format for exchanging information on the Internet — Adobe® Reader®, the free viewer for PDF files, is installed on more than half a billion computers worldwide. Companies, organizations, and government agencies increasingly use PDF files to distribute documents to the general public. For example, driver's license applications, medical forms, and even instruction manuals for DVD players are all distributed online as PDF files.

Last month, WordPerfect® Office X3 made history as the first office suite to let you import a PDF file, edit or reuse the file's text and graphics, and then save the material as a WordPerfect, Microsoft® Word®, or PDF file. In previous versions of WordPerfect Office, you could use WordPerfect or Presentations™ to create PDF files with the Publish to PDF feature. The new PDF import feature in WordPerfect X3 makes it easier than ever to repurpose content.

So, you can open a PDF file and edit it, or reuse portions of it to create a new document. How cool is that? You can repurpose PDF material while reducing the number of necessary formatting adjustments. This enhanced PDF import feature opens up a world of possibilities.

But wait –isn't this a bit like cracking a secret code? Aren't PDF files supposed to be secure? Aren't so many PDF documents being sent by e-mail and posted online because the originators are sure that the information cannot be altered?

Security of PDF files
Apparently, there is a common misconception about PDF files. Lots of people (myself included) believe that a PDF file is "locked" in the sense that you cannot change it or reuse the text. Unfortunately, this has not been the case for some time.

Savvy users figured out a long time ago that they could copy and paste information from a PDF document into WordPerfect. The original could not be altered, but the information could be repurposed into new documents, which could then be published to PDF. This manual process is tedious and frequently presents problems in preserving the text flow and importing pictures and other graphics.

Furthermore, products from vendors such as Nuance (formerly known as ScanSoft) already allow you to import PDF files. However, their solution puts text into boxes, so the text doesn't flow across pages as it does with the WordPerfect PDF import feature.

There are many legitimate reasons that you might need to use the content in a PDF file. For instance, the original electronic copy may have been misplaced, or the original author may not be available. Whatever the reason, WordPerfect X3 adheres to Adobe's specifications for security measures in PDF documents.

Password-protected PDF files
The advantages of being able to reuse the text and graphics in a PDF file outweigh the seeming loss of security. In fact, a high level of security is still available for these files. If a password has been assigned to a PDF file, and you do not have that password, you cannot open the file in WordPerfect.

In fact, you won't even be able to view it, much less use the aforementioned method of copying and pasting to gain content. No, if a password has been assigned to a PDF file, and you don't have that password, you won't be able to open that file in WordPerfect (or in Adobe Reader for that matter). Corel worked closely with Adobe to ensure that the feature adhered to the PDF standards.

Importing text-intensive PDF files
Successful importing of PDF files depends in large part on the type of document you are working with. The cleanest conversions involve text-intensive PDF files. WordPerfect X3 does an exceptional job of preserving text flow, even when the text is in columns and tables. Header and footer text in the PDF file is correctly placed into headers and footers in WordPerfect. Page numbering is preserved, bulleted and numbered lists are formatted with automatic numbering styles, and precise spacing is maintained. In most cases, the irregularities in the converted file are resolved with the removal of a few extra codes or blank lines.

Pictures and graphics in the PDF file are imported in their native formats, bitmap or vector, so it is easy to modify them or save them for later use.

Importing a "design document" PDF
With two other common forms of PDF files — "design documents" and "scanned documents" — the text conversion is not as straightforward. A design document is a PDF that was created with a design or drawing program such as CorelDRAW®. The layout might consist of graphics that overlap, with lines of text that extend across the page (rather than paragraphs of text flowing down the page). With WordPerfect, you can bring that text into the converted document and try to preserve the way the text flows across the page. Graphics and pictures appear in the converted document, where they can be saved for later use.

For example, let's say that you you want to open a WalMart ad for editing and tweaking. With this type of graphics-intense PDF file, you're better off opening it with CorelDRAW. Although you can open the file with WordPerfect X3, the layout will not be as close to the original as it would be with if you opened it with CorelDRAW.

Importing scanned PDF files
If the PDF file was created from a document that was scanned, the scanner software saves the image as a graphic. The resulting PDF is essentially a picture of the original page – just like a picture on your wall. Because the information is saved as one big image file, the only way to extract the text is to use an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) program.

Therefore, when converting a scanned document, WordPerfect imports the full image but does not allow you access to the text. As far as WordPerfect is concerned, the image is just a collection of black and white dots. At this point, the PDF import feature in WordPerfect X3 is not capable of translating those dots into text.

OCR applications can examine the image and pull out the text based on a recognition of letter shapes. However, an OCR program might read "to" as "fo," especially in a blurry faxed document. For this reason, documents created with the help of an OCR application typically require very careful proofreading.

Using WordPerfect for round-tripping of PDF documents
When you are traveling, a round trip means that you return to your original location. In the case of PDF documents, round-tripping refers to the process by which you can use WordPerfect not only to create PDF files, but also to open those files later, so that the content can be repurposed. Using WordPerfect X3, you'll be able to get the text out of the PDF, use all of the power of WordPerfect to make it look great, then be able to create a new PDF.

Importing a PDF file into WordPerfect X3
The process of importing a PDF file into WordPerfect X3 is so simple. All you need to do is open the file — the conversion launches automatically. If a password has been assigned to the file, you are prompted for it. If you don't have the password, or if you type in the wrong password, you'll see the error message "PDF cannot be opened for editing because it is encrypted or corrupted."

To import a PDF file, choose File > Open. In the Open File dialog box, browse to the PDF file, and open it by double-clicking the filename. The PDF Import dialog box appears (see Figure 1). If you want, you can click the Learn More button to open the Help topic "Importing PDF files for editing." When the conversion process is complete, click OK. If you want the dialog box to close automatically when the conversion is complete, enable the Close This Dialog Box When Import Completes check box. The imported PDF file appears in a new document window (see Figure 2).

You can now import PDF documents simply by opening them in WordPerfect.

The PDF file for the Reviewer's Guide for WordPerfect Office X3 is open in a new WordPerfect window.

After the text and images are displayed in WordPerfect, you can treat the document like any other. You can save it as a WordPerfect or Microsoft Word document, or you can make changes to it and republish it to PDF.

Tip: WordPerfect has long allowed you to publish documents in PDF format. Improvements to WordPerfect Office X3 extend this ability to spreadsheets that you create in Quattro Pro® and to slide shows that you create in Presentations. Now, you can publish all of your work in the open PDF format without having to use additional software.