A Note from Lynda Weinman

Lots of people "use" Acrobat, but few people understand or use all its features. Garrick Chow has done a tremendous job of making this program come alive through thoughtful and educational tutorials. As a teacher at our training facility in Ojai, California, we have long been impressed with Garrick's warmth, humor, intellect, and caring nature. As we worked on this book together, I was consistently impressed with how well it was turning out. In the process of developing the title, I got the unexpected benefit of becoming much more proficient in Acrobat than I ever expected. Our motto:; read the book, follow the exercises, and you will know the product has certainly proved true for me!

In my opinion, most people buy computer books in order to learn, yet it is amazing how few of these books are actually written by teachers. Garrick Chow and I take pride in the fact that this book was written by experienced teachers who are familiar with training students in this subject matter. In this book, you will find carefully developed lessons and exercises to help you learn Acrobat 5—one of the most most needed software packages on the planet!

This book is targeted toward beginning to intermediate level Acrobat users who are looking to become proficient in all of Acrobat's key features. The premise of the hands-on exercise approach is to get you up to speed quickly in Acrobat while actively working through the book's lessons. It's one thing to read about a product and another experience entirely to try the product and get measurable results. We have received countless testimonials that praise this book series, and it is our goal to make sure it remains true for all of the titles we take on!

Many exercise-based books take a paint-by-numbers approach to teaching. While this approach works, it's often difficult to figure out how to apply those lessons to a real-world situation, or to understand why or when you would use the technique again. What sets this book apart is that the lessons contain lots of background information and insights into each given subject, which are designed to help you understand the process as well as the exercise.

At times, pictures are worth a lot more than words. When necessary, we have also included short QuickTime movies to show any process that's difficult to explain with words. These files are located on the H•O•T CD-ROM inside a folder called movies. It's our style to approach teaching from many different angles, since we know that some people are visual learners, others like to read, and still others like to get out there and try things. This book combines a lot of teaching approaches so you can learn Acrobat 5 as thoroughly as you want to.

This book didn't set out to cover every single aspect of Acrobat. The manual, and many other reference books are great for that! What we saw missing from the bookshelves was a process-oriented tutorial that taught readers core principles, techniques, and tips in a hands-on training format.

It's Garicks's and my hope that this book will raise your skills in creating and using PDF's. If it does, we will have accomplished the job we set out to do!

—Lynda Weinman