Using Acrobat X Standard

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Taylor & Francis offers you a choice of options to help you make corrections to your proofs. The PDF proof files have been enabled so that you can edit the proof directly. If you use this method, please do not also send corrections by email or using the CATS correction form. This helps us make sure that all your corrections are included.

PLEASE NOTE: The CATS system only supports Internet Explorer versions 5.5 and up, or Firefox 1.0 browser software. These instructions may not be relevant if you are using a different operating system or browser.

Some frequently asked questions have been answered below, but if you have any suggestions for other useful information we could provide, please contact our Author Services department.

Frequently asked questions

• How can I check that my computer is set up correctly?
• I find looking at the screen tiring. Is there anything I can do about this?
• How can I make the comment bar move?
• How can I undo my mistakes?
• How can I edit the text?
• How should I delete a hyphen?
• How should I insert or replace text?
• How do I add hyphens and dashes?
• How do I add spaces?
• How do I add paragraph breaks?
• How do I add uncommon symbols?
• How do I stop deleting and replacing running together?
• How do I change the format of the text?
• Is there an easy way to make many similar corrections?
• How can I make changes to the layout?
• How can I make changes to figures?
• Can I add my corrections to those of a co-author?
• How can I collate corrections from multiple sources?

How can I check that my computer is set up correctly?
First open the Acrobat "shell." Click the round Windows button in the bottom left of your screen, click "All Programs" and near the top of the list you should see "Adobe Acrobat X Standard." That's the one you want.

By default, Acrobat X will open Internet-based PDFs (such as your proofs) inside an Internet Explorer window. This means that all of your tools will be missing. To fix this, in Acrobat click the Edit menu, then Preferences. In the menu on the left select "Internet" and uncheck the box that says "Display PDF in browser."

I find looking at the screen tiring. Is there anything I can do about this?
If you are concerned about glare or eye-strain while editing proofs on screen, you can tone down the whiteness of the PDFs. Click the Edit menu, then Preferences, then select the "Accessibility" option. Go to "Document Colors Options." Check the box "Replace Document Colors" and you will have a number of options to change the color of the background and the text. These changes are not made to the PDF: they are purely display options that affect how your computer presents the document.

Note 1: Make sure the "Only change the color of black text or line art" box is unchecked. Otherwise the text may not change color.

Note 2: Note that not all PDFs will play well with this option. Anything with a lot of artwork may show some odd side-effects and scanned PDFs with hand-written corrections won't work properly at all.

How can I make the comment bar move?
If you find the text in the comment list is too small to read, but you still want to use it, click the Edit menu, then Preferences, then select "Commenting" from the menu. In the middle of the options list is a box that says "Hide comment pop-ups when Comments List is open." Make sure this is unchecked. Now, whenever you click a comment in the comment list Acrobat will jump to the matching entry in the document and open the pop-up, allowing you to read it in a larger font.

Note: If the text in the pop-up boxes is also too small, you can change the font and size in the same Edit-Preferences-Commenting screen.

How can I undo my mistakes?
Click to select the correction. You should see the dashed blue highlight box as illustrated here:

Then push the delete key. That removes the whole thing. Note that the backspace key doesn't work for removing corrections: it has to be the delete key. Alternatively, right-click on the correction and select delete.

How can I edit the text?
Almost all the tools you need to edit text in Acrobat X are contained in the default "select" tool which you can see in the top left of the screen.

With the select tool selected, click and drag to select the text you wish to edit. With the text selected:

• Press "delete" or "backspace" to mark the text for deletion. This is shown by a red line struck through the text in question.
• Press "insert" to replace the text. This will mark the text with a blue line struck through it and a small blue insertion caret, and open a pop-up box for you to type the replacement text into.
• Alternatively, you can right-click on the selected text for a variety of options.

Most of the options in this menu are self-explanatory. Add Note to Text highlights the text and opens a pop-up for you to type a note into. (This is useful for marking out text which should be in italics or bold.) Look Up "word" connects you to an online dictionary.

You can also click in the document with the select tool to produce a movable cursor similar in appearance to the typing cursor in Word or Outlook, and movable using the same keys. If you press "Insert" then it will create an insertion caret (and pop-up) where the typing cursor is so you can add text there. You can also use delete and backspace to delete text from the position of the cursor.

The right-click menu works without text selected as well: if the typing cursor is visible you will have the option to "Add Text" at Cursor which lets you insert text where the typing cursor is (not the mouse pointer). More generally you can right-click anywhere and select "Add Sticky Note" which adds a note in the place where you right-clicked.

How should I delete a hyphen?
Deleting hyphens and other conjoining elements can be tricky. To avoid uncertainty, it is best to replace the whole construction rather than just delete the hyphen. For example:

How should I insert or replace text?
When inserting or replacing text, you will be typing into a pop-up box that appears when you press Insert. You can make the box go away by clicking the minimize symbol in the top-right and bring it back by single-clicking on the correction in the text
(the strikethrough or caret). Example:

Notes

Don’t include instructions to the typesetter such as "Please insert this text here". The text in the box should only be what you want to see inserted. However, sometimes you will need to clarify inserted text or add some additional commentary.

This should be done in a square-bracketed statement added after short corrections or before longer ones - for the sake of clarity, put a blank line between the commentary and the actual correction. For example:

The text you type into the box can be made bold, italic, underlined, superscript, or subscript just as if you were typing in any other application. You can select the word and right-click, then select "Text Style" on the menu that pops up, then select your chosen option; or you can use the following keyboard shortcuts:

• Ctrl + I = italic
• Ctrl + B = bold
• Ctrl + U = underline
• Ctrl + Plus = _subscript
• Ctrl + Shift + Plus = ^superscript

You can also copy and paste text from and into the blue boxes.

What you type in the blue box will be reproduced exactly. Please check it for spelling mistakes!

Make sure to put spaces where you want spaces to go.

How do I add hyphens and dashes?

Unlike Word, Acrobat does not automatically distinguish between dashes of various lengths. When inserting dashes, use one for a hyphen, two for an en-dash, and three for an em-dash. If the dash should be spaced, add spaces either side.

You can also add clarification each time, just to make sure. Example:

How do I add spaces?
Acrobat has a built-in indicator to show when all that is needed is an added space. If you just hit insert, then the space bar, then click elsewhere or close the pop-up box, you'll get the caret-underscore symbol shown on the left in this example:

The example on the right is a more certain way of getting the correction you want.

How do I add paragraph breaks?
Like spaces, paragraph breaks have their own symbol. If you just press insert, then enter, then close the box, you’ll get the symbol on the left. A more certain method is shown on the right.

How do I add uncommon symbols?
There are three ways:

1. If you know the Alt-key shortcut for an uncommon letter or symbol, you can type that into the box and the symbol will appear as it should. For example, Ctrl+Alt+4 will produce a Euro (€) symbol, or Alt-142 will produce Ã.
   
   
2. Open Word, click on the Insert tab, and then "Symbol" on the right-hand end of the toolbar. Find the symbol you want and double-click it to insert it into the blank Word document. Then select the symbol in Word, copy it, and paste it into the text box in Acrobat. If you need to use the symbol again you can copy and paste from within Acrobat.
   
   
3. If you know the LaTeX code for a symbol ("\alpha" for "α", for example) you can use that and the symbol will be correctly inserted.
   
   

How do I stop deleting and replacing running together?
A quirk which Acrobat has is that when trying to delete or replace multiple pieces of text with only a small gap between them, it "helpfully" runs the deletions together over anything in between. For example, if you are trying to turn "(a)" into "a" then if you delete each parenthesis individually Acrobat will extend the deletion to cover the “a” as well. If may be best to select the whole thing that you want to change and do a single replace rather than several small deletions.

How do I change the format of the text?
If you want to change the format of text, select the text you want to modify, then "Add Note to Text" from the right-click menu. Then write your instruction in the pop-up box:

You can put any instruction in there that applies to the highlighted text: make it bold, change the font, change the font size, etc.

Is there an easy way to make many similar corrections?
In cases where you want to make the same correction a great number of times - bolding the letter R where it appears in mathematical formulas, for example - you can place a single sticky note on the first page of the article with the instruction "Make R bold where highlighted" and then highlight each occurrence of R where it should be bold. This is much faster than issuing a separate instruction for each instance.

How can I make changes to the layout?
Layout changes are best handled by sticky notes with detailed instructions. Other useful tools for enacting layout changes are the line, box, and arrow tools which can be found in the "Drawing Markups" section of the Comment sidebar. Remember you can use Ctrl-Z or delete if you make any mistakes.

How can I make changes to figures?
You cannot make changes directly to figures – any modifications should be marked on them with sticky notes. This includes occasions when figures are replaced: a note with the instruction "replacement figure X" tells us to look for the replacement figure which you have uploaded with your corrections.

Can I add my corrections to those of a co-author?
If you are sharing the proof correction process with a colleague, you can add further corrections of your own or you can select, delete, and/or edit their changes if you need to. If the first author has used a non-Adobe product to add their comments to a PDF, you will need to use sticky notes with clear instructions of what changes need to be made.

How can I collate corrections from multiple sources?
If you receive corrections on the same PDF from multiple authors:

1. Open one version of the paper. In the Comment sidebar, open the Comments List panel and select the button on the far right (labelled "options" if you hover the mouse over it). You should get the following drop-down menu.

Click "Export All to Data File" and save the file somewhere easy to find, such as your desktop.

2. Close that PDF and open the second one. In the same menu, click "Import Data File" and select the file you just saved. Now all of your corrections are in one place. (You can delete the data file now, as you do not need it any longer.)

Note: If the same thing is flagged in multiple sets of corrections Acrobat will "overlap" them in the final collected document. To avoid any confusion, it is best to check through any PDF you’ve collated in this way to make sure all the corrections still make sense.