Download Adobe Acrobat 7 Tips And Tricks

TIP 137: Watching Folders
Another Acrobat tool for enhancing productivity is Acrobat Distiller 7, which lets you create a special folder
system of "watched" folders and then have Acrobat look for and process files in these folders
automatically. You don't have to install Distillerit is installed as part of the overall Acrobat 7 installation
process.
Watching in Windows or Mac
Windows and Mac operating systems have different behaviors when it comes to watched
folders.
In Windows, watched folder settings are unique to each user except for the Adobe PDF
settings files, which are shared. If the Windows system is non-NTFS (Windows NT File
System), custom settings files are read- and write-accessible by all users of the system. If
you are using an NTFS system, your files are read- and write-accessible to you, and settings
files created by other users are read-only; Distiller's default settings files are read-only and
hidden.
In Mac OS, your settings and preferences are your own. If you want to share a watched
folder, you must be logged into your system, have Distiller running, and then set permissions
on the In and Out folders, which lets others copy files to the In folder and retrieve files from
the Out folder. Users you want to share your files with must be logged in remotely to access
the watched folder and process files.
How would you like Acrobat Distiller to automatically look for PostScript files in an In folder, convert them
to PDF according to specified settings, and send the finished documents to an Out folder? In some
workflows, an automated process like this could save you a lot of time.
Add a folder you want to use as a watched folder to your hard drive. Then open Distiller and follow these
steps to set up watched folders:
1. Choose Settings > Watched Folders to open the Watched Folders dialog (Figure 137a).
Figure 137a. Configure a set of folders to watch for and process
PostScript files automatically.
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