Acrobat 9 and Password Encryption in PDF Files (256-bit AES vs. 128-bit AES)

One of the new features in Adobe Acrobat 9 is the ability to use 256-bit AES encryption when password protecting PDF files (instead of the 128-bit AES encryption that Solid PDF Tools Scan to PDF and Adobe Acrobat 7 and later do).

Although this does allow for much longer passwords than before (127 instead of 32), users with passwords less than 32 characters would be much better off using 128-bit AES encryption as the new encryption level makes it much easier than before for hackers to brute force passwords.

Fortunately, users of both Adobe Acrobat 9 and Solid Converter PDF to Word can simply keep using 128-bit AES encryption when password protecting files to retain the level of security they've had in the past.

Care for more technical details? Check out ZDNet and Adobe's blog posts on the subject.

Free Online PDF/A-1b Validation Service

We've launched a free online service for PDF/A-1b validation.

Solid Documents is a member of the PDF/A Competence Center, a cooperation between numerous world-leading companies and experts in PDF technology. PDF/A-1b is an ISO Standard for using the PDF format for the long-term archiving of electronic documents. Not all PDF files meet this ISO 19005-1: PDF/A-1b standard.

To verify that your PDF files are PDF/A-1b compliant, go to www.validatepdfa.com. Use the simple wizard to send us your PDF files via email. Attach the PDF files you want to validate and send. Our validation software will analyze your files and email you the results.

No installation. No hassles. Instant results.

Free PDF Validator uses the industry leading PDF/A validator from Solid PDF Tools. You can find out more about Solid PDF Tools here.

Solid Alternative to Adobe® Acrobat® – Solid PDF Tools

Solid PDF Tools does what most users need when creating and working with PDF files, including document security, scan to PDF, OCR for search, and PDF/A creation and validation. In addition, Solid PDF Tools leads the industry in PDF to Word conversion excellence.

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Free Online PDF to Word Conversion

We've just launched a free service for free PDF to Word conversions.

To use it go to freepdftoword.org, select your conversion options and click a button to make an e-mail message appear with the settings you've chosen. Attach your PDF file and click send. Our servers will convert the file and e-mail your converted Word Document back to you.

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Change the Default File Format in Word 2007 from .docx to .doc

One thing that many users notice after upgrading to Microsoft® Office 2007 is that by default new Word documents now end in .docx instead of .doc.

Although the new file type offers many improvements over the old one, it can be troublesome to use if you work with many people that have older versions of Office. There are workarounds available from Microsoft, but it's usually easier just to send them something you know they can open.

One way to solve the problem is to simply change the default file format in Word 2007 to DOC.

To do this go into Word 2007 and click the Office Button | Word Options | Save | Save files in this format | Set this to "Word 97-2003 Document (*.doc)" and click OK.



Now you won't have to worry about whether or not your collaborators can read your files.

How to Hide (or Unhide) the Ribbon in Office 2007

(or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Ribbon).

Microsoft Office 2007 made significant changes to the user interface, the most visible of which is the Ribbon:



Although this does tend to be more useful than the toolbar in previous versions of Office, it's not always the most efficient way to work.

Many users with smaller screens (such as laptops) need as much vertical workspace as possible. The Ribbon can take up far too much of this precious space when all you want to do is enter and correct text.

Hiding or unhiding the Ribbon is as easy as pressing ctrl+F1 (or just double click on one of the tabs on the Ribbon, Home being a good example):



You can still use the Ribbon while it's hidden, just select a tab and the Ribbon will appear again, temporarily.

Free PDF Creator

Solid PDF Creator (The best free PDF creation utility available) is now 100% free.

There is no watermark on created files, no nag screen and no expiration date. You don't need to sign up for anything or provide us with your e-mail address. We don't need to know the name of your first dog or where you went to high school.

Just download the best free PDF creator and make some great quality PDF files courtesy of Solid Documents.

Creating a PDF or PDF/A is as easy as printing.

This simple-to-use utility is a quick solution for creating PDF documents from any Windows program including Word, Excel® and PowerPoint.

Just open a document and print to the Solid PDF Creator printer driver. You can set PDF permissions, password protect your documents, optimize them for file size or image quality and archive your PDFs as ISO 19005-1 compliant PDF/A-1b files.

Why PDF/A and Solid PDF Tools are Great for Archival

Solid Documents has participated with PDF/A Competence Center in the process of coming up with a standardized way to test the compliance of PDF/A validators and converters. The aim of the PDF/A Competence Center is to promote the exchange of information and experience in the area of long-term archiving in accordance with ISO 19005: PDF/A.

Why PDF/A is Great for Archival

PDF documents are very flexible and can contain many different kinds of information and formatting. However, while some features are required for the accurate archival of documents, others are not ideal for this purpose.

Converting PDF documents to PDF/A and validating them for the ISO 19005-1 specification is needed to help ensure that they will display and function the same way in the future as they do today.




Many Organizations Use PDF/A Files to Archive Documents

"PDF/A-1 files facilitate compliance ... for transfers of permanent records in PDF“
- NARA (US National Archives and Records Administration)

“Since September 2005, PDF / A is a stable, internationally accepted ISO standard for long-term archiving.” Translated from German.
- The University of Potsdam

Add a PDF Watermark

A useful PDF creation feature of Solid Converter PDF to Word v4 is the ability to add watermarks to your PDF documents. You can choose to use existing watermarks included with our software, or create your own custom watermark using text or images.

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Search PDF files

Using the search feature of Solid Converter PDF to Word v4 enables you to search a PDF containing text using keywords or phrases to quickly locate desired pages.

Do you have a multipage PDF document and need to locate the pages containing the budget analysis? Or perhaps you need to locate pages containing specific names or reference numbers.

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Extract PDF pages to create a new PDF

With the PDF creation features of Solid Converter PDF to Word v4 you can extract a desired page or range of pages from a PDF document. You can then choose to create a new PDF document with the extracted pages.

Perhaps you have a multipage PDF document and find only certain pages are needed for your current task. Maybe a range of pages have become outdated and is not longer suited for distribution. Using the PDF page extraction feature you can choose to extract the desired pages from the PDF and create a new PDF document ready for distribution.

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Rotate PDF Pages

With the PDF manipulation features of Solid Converter PDF to Word v4 you can rotate a specific page or range of pages in a PDF document. Perhaps you have charts or graphs in the PDF document that are better suited for landscape view. Or maybe you have received the document and a selected group of pages are rotated in the wrong direction.

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Extracting Tables to Word

With the table detection feature of Solid Converter PDF to Word you can choose to extract tables from a PDF document to Microsoft Word while preserving the layout, content and style of the table or tables within a PDF document.

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Extracting Tables to Excel

One of the many powerful features of Solid Converter PDF to Word is the ability to extract tables from a PDF document to Microsoft Excel.

Does your PDF document contain tables or data in table form? Do you need data extracted from the tables within the PDF document? You can choose to extract those tables from the entire document or specific pages using the table extraction feature of Solid Converter PDF v4.

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Rearrange Pages

Using the features of Solid Converter PDF to Word v4 you can rearrange specific pages of a PDF document depending on your needs. Does the PDF contain information on page 33 that should be page 2? Should the last 10 pages be the first 10 pages of the document? If this is the case, simply open the PDF document in Solid Converter PDF v4 and rearrange the pages according to the task at hand.

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Creating Optimized PDF Documents

There are many advantages of publishing your content in PDF documents. One distinct advantage is how PDF documents are compact and easy to exchange. They can also be further optimized for distribution. Perhaps you are creating PDF documents for the web. Using the optimization features of Solid Converter PDF to Word v4 can further reduce the file size and boost the display speed, saving bandwidth and workflow. Applying the optimization options of Solid Converter PDF v4 can reduce the documents size for Web or print, while preserving the desired level of quality.

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Secure your PDF files

Working on a presentation? Perhaps you are in the legal profession and create PDF documents containing sensitive and critical information. With the password protection features of Solid Converter PDF to Word v4 you can protect your PDF file from unauthorized altering or viewing. By assigning a password to a PDF file you can restrict viewing, printing, editing and extraction of the PDF document.

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Quickest way to convert PDF files into Word documents

Do you have a PDF file that needs editing? Perhaps you have a newsletter that needs updating before the next event.
Solid Converter PDF to Word v4 offers timesaving steps when compared to Adobe Acrobat to accomplish a quality conversion needed for your task.

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New Releases: Solid Converter PDF v4 and Solid PDF Tools

We're proud to announce that Solid Converter® PDF to Word v4 is now available, in addition to an updated version of Solid PDF Tools Scan to PDF that has all of the new features in Solid Converter PDF v4.

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Scrolling Window Capture in Firefox using Solid Capture

Solid Capture has a wonderful feature called Scrolling Window Capture. It allows you to capture an entire web page as a single image. Unfortunately, this feature is only available in Internet Explorer and not Firefox.

So what are our customers who prefer using Firefox over IE left to do (besides use IE)? One good workaround we've found is using IE Tab to view Internet Explorer inside of a tab in Firefox. You can then use Solid Capture to take a screen shot of the IE tab in Firefox. When you're done taking the screen shot you can change the tab back to Firefox and keep working.

At the time of this writing the latest version of the add-on that works with Firefox 2 is 1.3.3.20070528 (try saying that five times fast). You can download it from here.

The product is a little short on instructions, but it isn't hard to use. When you're at a page that you want to view in IE, click the IE Tab button on your toolbar to switch to IE. When you want to switch the tab back, click the IE Tab button again.


(The IE Tab button in Firefox)

It may install itself automatically for people, but when we tested it we didn't see any extra buttons appear on our navigation toolbar like it does in the above image.

We were able to add it by going into Firefox | View | Toolbars | Customize. Click and drag the IE Tab button to your toolbar of choice to place the button. You can click the IE Tab button whenever you need to open a page in Firefox in Internet Explorer.

Capturing Screen Shots of Video using VLC Media Player

Occasionally customers will contact us asking how to take screen shots from moments in their favorite DVDs.

Although Solid Capture Screen Capture is very good for capturing screen shots of most Windows applications, one thing it doesn't do well is capture still images of video. This is due to the fact that it does not capture DirectX output.

We've found that using VLC media player works well for this application. Instructions on how to take screen shots of video in the program can be found here.

PDF Timesavers: Convert Multiple PDF files to DOC using Solid Converter PDF

Normally in Solid Converter PDF you'll use a wizard menu to convert PDF files to DOC. As you progress through this wizard many conversion options will be made available to you. This is useful if you convert PDF files infrequently, as it reminds you what options are available and provides an idea of what they do.

The downside to this is that if you have to convert several files (5, 10 or even more) you have to click through the wizard for each and every PDF file. This obviously isn't optimal.

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Adobe Acrobat vs. Solid PDF Creator Plus: Password Protect an Existing PDF File

This comparison focuses on encrypting and password protecting an existing PDF file using Solid PDF Creator Plus and Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional.

Both applications are more than up to the task. However, using the default settings of Adobe Acrobat require that you click through many popup windows to accomplish your goal.

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Adobe Acrobat vs. Solid PDF Creator Plus: Extracting Pages from a PDF File

This comparison focuses on extracting pages 1-10 and 20-30 from a PDF file and placing it in a new PDF file.

Why would you want to do this? You might have a price list or catalog that you want to customize for a customer. Or you might have some documentation that is rather large and you only need to refer to certain sections of it. Whatever your reason you can use both Solid PDF Creator Plus and Adobe Acrobat to accomplish this goal.

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Adobe Acrobat vs. Solid PDF Creator Plus: Combining Two PDF Files

This comparison focuses on combining two PDF files using either Adobe Acrobat or Solid PDF Creator Plus. The steps below could just as easily apply to combining five or ten PDF files, as the process is the same for both products.

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CutePDF Professional vs. Solid PDF Creator Plus: Deleting a Page in a PDF File

This comparison focuses on deleting an individual page from a PDF file using CutePDF Professional and Solid PDF Creator Plus. If you haven't yet read the first post in this series, we recommend that you do so to see how Solid PDF Creator Plus performs. We also have a complete feature comparison of the free version of CutePDF verses Solid PDF Creator and Solid PDF Creator Plus which is well worth reading.

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Adobe Acrobat vs. Solid PDF Creator Plus: Deleting a Page in a PDF File

As we just released a new PDF creation and modification utility (Solid PDF Creator Plus), we thought it might be helpful to compare how certain features of the product compare with our competitor's products.

This comparison focuses on deleting an individual page from a PDF file using Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional and Solid PDF Creator Plus.

Although both applications allow you to delete pages, Adobe Acrobat does not let you undo a page deletion. Rather, each time you attempt to delete a page it offers a pop-up message that you need to click to confirm that you really want to delete it.

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