Seems every time Adobe creates a new version of Acrobat, it gets even better about handling law office files that are being reviewed, edited or submitted. 

One of the coolest features is it’s ability to merge many files into one, and what makes this feature even cooler is that they don’t all have to be PDFs or even the same format.  You can combine Word, Excel, and even .tif images into one PDF.  In this demo, I’m using  Adobe Acrobat Professional 9.  However, this feature is also available in the Adobe Acrobat Standard and Extended Pro versions.

In this scenario, I have been asked to provide outside counsel with copies of certain files in a case.  The files are presently stored as .tif images in my Summation database.  Using Adobe’s ‘Merge Files’  feature, I will create one PDF file containing all the files for the outside counsel to review.

Okay, let’s get started!

• Open Adobe Acrobat and from the toolbar, click the Create button.
• From the drop-down menu, select Merge Files into a Single PDF…  

•  There are four choices for adding your files.  In our scenario, I copied the files into a separate folder, so I’ll select Add Folders…

•  The Browse for Folder dialog box appears.   In this scenario,  my files are in a subfolder called “Outside” under the My Documents folder.
• I’ll highlight the folder and click OK.

• Use the Move Up ↑ and Move Down ↓ buttons to reorder the files, if necessary. 

• The Remove button allows you to delete some of the files before you combine. 

•  If you have a multi-page document, the Choose Pages button allows you to remove certain pages from a single document before combining the files. 

• Options are available to change the way the conversion works.  We will leave them at their default for our example scenario.

• Click the Combine Files button. 

• As each file is converted, a green check mark displays to the right to show the conversion was “Successful.”

• When the process of conversion and combining  is complete, you are prompted to name your combined file and click Save.

• With your PDF open, you can add other features like  comments, page numbering, and more.

In  future posts, I’ll share some other great features I L-O-V-E about Adobe Acrobat 9!

Understanding .tif files

I frequently get calls from attorneys who cannot open  files with a “.tif” or “.tiff” extension.  Generally, they receive the file(s) from an expert, co-counsel or client.  Of course, not wanting to look technically inept, they call me to help. 

So for all those that have always wondered how to approach this techno-detour, I’ve created this post about how to open .tif files.  

The “.tif” (Tagged Image File) file format (aka .tiff) is a format primarily used for creating huge image or line art files.  Even some scanning devices and software applications save in a  .tif format.  The problem for some is when you try to open the .tif file, it won’t; or asks you which program to open it in.  It’s simply that the .tif extension is not registered as a file extension, or not associated to open with a program on your computer.

You can check this on your own computer following these steps:

• Double-click the My Computer icon,  or right-click on the Windows® Start button and choose Explore.
• Click Tools, Folder Options...

• Click the File Types tab and scroll through the list and see if .tif or .tiff is listed.

• If you don’t see either listed, click the  New button 
• Type TIF in the File Extension field and click OK.

 Once you have the extension listed, you can choose which program to use to open and edit the files.  The computer will supply a recommended list of programs in alphabetical order to choose from, as shown in the example below.  I would pick one you feel most comfortable working in.

Additionally, by checking the box “Always use the selected program to open this kind of file,“  you can request that .tif files open ONLY using the selected program.  You will save a lot of billable minutes by not having to decide each time you receive this type of file on how to open them.

In my next post, I’ll talk about converting all those .tif images into one PDF.