Create a Checklist of Your PDF Mark-up in 2 Clicks

In my previous post of this series, I showed you how to use the “text edits” tool to mark up changes in a PDF. Some production departments are afraid of this tool. (See the insightful and learned comments in the previous post.)

A colleague and I both freelance for the same publisher, but in different divisions. Each of us has double-checked with the production department(s) and been assured that we are not allowed to use the other’s method for marking up PDFs. This makes me sad, because my colleague speaks very highly of Acrobat’s text edit tools, and they look slick. I’d like to use them.

In a very old industry, new tricks take patience

The checklist solution

My colleague points out that Acrobat will provide a tidy list of every single mark and comment made in a document. It will even mark up the PDF with little number tags (like evidence markers) that correlate to the mark-up summary.

This number-tagged mark-up in the document correlates to the summarized comments (below).

These numbered comments are linked to each mark in the document.

My colleague’s production department uses this list as a checklist of changes to be implemented. As a believer in The Checklist Manifesto, I think this practice is first rate. [Update: See "Using the PDF Markup Comments List" for instructions on another checklist method.]

Find the Summarize Comments function in the Comments menu.

If you read that menu, you can see there are several options for producing a checklist. Encourage your production department to see which method works best for them. You can even produce a summary yourself and send it with your transmittal.

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PDF editing mark-up in Adobe Acrobat series:

Basic PDF Mark-up for Copy Editors and Proofreaders

Key Mark-up Techniques for Proofreading PDFs

Edit Tools for Marking up PDFs

Create a Checklist of Your PDF Mark-up in 2 Clicks

Using the PDF Markup Comments List

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