Options
The PDF production tool
Options is an Acrobat plug-in for setting multiple options for PDF files in a batch process. The open and security options, index, general information metadata (title, subject etc.) and form fields of all the PDF files within a selected directory can be set. There is also a watched directory facility and an OLE server, see the Main Features section for more information.
Options will process secure files by asking for the passwords before it begins work.
“Options is AMAZING. Over the years we have built a PDF collection of over 40,000 documents (the world's largest collection of its kind) and we could not have done it without Options. We use the Meta fields for indexing and display purposes and the ability to batch edit document meta and properties has saved us hundreds, if not thousands, of hours.”
Matt Timberlake, Expert Publishing LLC
How Options Works
To process one or more PDF files the user has to:
- Set up the Default Settings to apply from the Options menu in Acrobat. From here, all the required open and security options, information fields (metadata) and form fields, hyperfeatures, indexes etc to be applied later can be specified.
- Select a file or directory to process.
- Process the PDF file(s) with the ‘Apply to File...’ or ‘Apply to Directory’ menu items.
Main Features
| Watched directories | PDF files can have new settings applied by dropping them into defined watched directories. Each directory can have different settings applied if desired. |
| OLE server | An OLE server allows other applications to call Options to apply settings to a single PDF file or a batch of them. |
| Apply to Directory or Apply to File | You can apply settings to a directory of PDFs or to a single PDF file. |
| Optimisation | PDF files can be saved as optimised for use on the web (i.e. ‘fast web view’ or page-at-a-time downloading). |
| Doc Info fields (metadata) | Export and import document information fields to be processed on a batch of files. Fields can be exported to a CSV file which could then be edited in a spreadsheet such as MS Excel and then imported back into Options for processing. Custom fields can be created and edited as well as the standard Title, Subject, Author and Keywords fields. |
| Form fields | Export and import text form field values to or from a CSV file. As above, these could be edited in a spreadsheet, then import the CSV file to change the field values. |
| Hyperfeatures | You can change properties of links, notes, bookmarks and articles or remove some, or all, of them in batch. You can also copy them from a template document to all the files being processed, and are able to create thumbnails. |
| Index | Attach an Acrobat Search index to automatically load when the file is opened in Acrobat or Reader. |
Page orientation |
All pages can be rotated to be portrait or landscape. |
Page reversal |
You can reverse the page order in the PDF. Useful with some printer drivers which reverse the output. |