Category Archives: Software Guides

Acrobat DC New Features

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All of you use Adobe Acrobat on a daily basis.  Whether it is Adobe Acrobat Reader, Standard or Pro, it is an excellent tool for legal professionals for everything from saving pleadings to file with the court’s case management/electronic case file system to reviewing discovery.  Some of you have been using Acrobat for a while and know that Adobe comes out with new versions every couple of years.  The latest version of Acrobat stopped using the number of release to distinguish a new version (like Adobe Acrobat XI), but now calls itself DC, which stands for Document Cloud, and labels the version by the year of the release (Adobe Acrobat DC 2016 the most recent version).  Like many other software companies, Adobe is moving to a cloud based service giving users the option of working on multiple devices seamlessly if they choose to store their files online.  Though designed for cloud use, users do not have to store their documents remotely, and they can continue using Acrobat DC as a desktop program as they always have.

Acrobat DC has a new look compared to previous versions, has been designed to be tablet and cell phone friendly, and gives users the ability to work on a document from different devices seamlessly. The addition of a user friendly tabbed tool bar makes switching from one document to another that much easier.

The “Home” tab shows the most recent files you have worked with.  You can also search for a file in the search bar, open a file by navigating to it by clicking on “My Computer” or going to the File Menu and selecting → Open.

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Once you open a document, the “Document” tab appears at the top of the screen, allowing you to easily navigate from the Document to the Tool Center to the Home page.

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The “Tools” tab, otherwise known as the DC Tool Center centralizes all the features of Acrobat in one place for easy access. Now you can quickly find the tool you need without having to remember which  menu in the tools section to navigate to.

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The “Search Tools” option in DC is intuitive and easy to use. If you want to OCR a document, type OCR in the “Search Tools” section of the Tool Center and all the toolsets related to recognizing text will appear.

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The tool pane that users see when looking at a document can be customized. You can add a tool to the tool pane by selecting “Add Shortcut” from the Tool Center or by right-clicking in the Tool Pane when searching for a tool and adding it there.

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When Tool Groups are opened, they are automatically pinned to the top of the screen. The Tool Group stays open until you close it or open another tool.

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DC gives you multiple ways of accessing the tools you are looking for and then quickly going back to working with your documents.

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The new tabbed tool bar is just one feature of Acrobat DC that makes upgrading worthwhile.  More features will be highlighted in upcoming posts so stay tuned.

dtSearch Desktop Demonstration Video

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dtSearch is a popular search and retrieval program. Here is a brief 12 minute video that demonstrates how to setup a new dtSearch index and how to run searches within an index.

As mentioned in the dtSearch Desktop post, we have been able to obtain a limited number of licenses that will be made available to CJA panel attorneys with current, active cases.  To request a license go to the dtSearch Desktop post and fill out the request form on the bottom.

Note: like most litigation software programs, this program was developed for Windows-based operating systems and does not work with Macintosh operating systems.

 

dtSearch Desktop

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Limited licenses of dtSearch Desktop Available for CJA Panel Attorneys

We are pleased to announce that we are able to offer a limited number of dtSearch Desktop software licenses for CJA panel attorneys with current, active cases at no cost (a $200 value). 

*PLEASE NOTE:  dtSearch only works on Windows-based operating systems. It will not work on Mac computers unless you are running a virtual Windows operating system.*

dtSearch is a popular search and retrieval program that can be a useful tool for searching discovery and creating brief banks.  It can be helpful in viewing different file types (including non-PDF files) even if you do not have the associated program installed on your computer. dtSearch is the search engine utilized in many familiar litigation support programs including Adobe Acrobat Pro, CaseMap and Forensic Tool Kit (FTK, a computer forensic tool).

dtSearch allows users to search native files as well as scanned paper documents that are in a text searchable format. It generates a search index for each folder of materials the user designates and allows one to search the contents of an entire folder regardless of the amount of data or the number of varied file formats. As electronic discovery in federal criminal matters continues to grow in volume and in the variety of formats. dtSearch is a great resource for CJA panel attorneys faced with the daunting task of organizing and searching through their case material.

To obtain your free license of dtSearch, simply fill out the dtSearch Request Form below. Once you complete all of the fields, click on the “submit” button at the bottom of the form. This will automatically send an email with your completed form attached to Joe Wanzala, the National Litigation Support Paralegal in charge of dtSearch licensing. You will then receive an email within 5 business days with download instructions and an activation code. Each user license can be installed for that user on two machines.

You must have an active appointed case to utilize this license.  If you are no longer on the panel and don’t have an active appointed case, we request you return the license to the National Litigation Support Team (NLST) by contacting Joe Wanzala so the license can be used by other CJA panel attorneys. 

For technical support or if you have any questions regarding the utilization of dtSearch within your office, please contact either Alex Roberts, Joe Wanzala or Carl Adams.  If you want to learn more about dtSearch, you can go to dtSearch.com.

dtSearch Desktop Request Form:

Adobe Acrobat: “Renderable Text”

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When working with PDF documents you may encounter a “renderable text” error message.  This message will sometimes occur when trying to make a scanned paper PDF file text searchable (also know as adding OCR to a document).

error messageDepending on the version of Acrobat you have, the message may read something like:

“Renderable text” is typically text that has been added to an scanned paper image (like a header, footer or bates number), through a non-Acrobat program.  The way this text is encoded into the page can cause Acrobat to disallow additional searchable text (OCR text).

This message can certainly be annoying and it can also be significant as it can limit your ability to run searches.  In Acrobat, you will be unable to add new searchable OCR text, or improve the quality of the existing OCR, until the error is fixed.

If you’ve seen this message before, and have tried to fix the document without success, you are not alone!  We spoken with a number of people over the years who have come up with some creative solutions.  Though we have yet to find “one solution” that will always fix this particular error, here are a number of possible solutions (results will vary depending on the cause of the error):

Solution 1: Obtain a version of the document with OCR.

  • It may seem simplistic, but if you receive documents without searchable OCR, ask for it.  Often the person or organization that gave it to you will want to search the files themselves and may already have a copy that has been OCR’ed.  Even if the documents they give you generate “renderable text” error messages, you will still be able to search any of the existing OCR text within the files.

Solution 2: If the files are from PACER / ECF, download a new copy.

  • The default download settings in PACER / ECF will add “purple” headers with the case number (which will cause a “renderable text” error message).  If you can find the document again in PACER / ECF, download it with the header option turned off.

Solution 3: Run “Add Tags to Document” (available in Acrobat Pro).
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  • If you have Acrobat Pro installed there is a special “Accessibility” menu where you can run “Add Tags to Document”.  For certain PDF’s, running this option will clear up the issue and allow the document OCR to be run.

Solution 4: Print the document to PDF (available in Acrobat Standard and Acrobat Pro).

  • If you have Acrobat installed (Standard or Pro) you’ll probably also have access to an “Acrobat PDF” virtual printer.  By printing the document to this virtual printer, the new PDF that is created will often avoid having the renderable text issue.

Solution 5: “Sanitize” the document then rerun OCR (available in Acrobat Pro).

  • From the “Protection” menu run “Sanitize Document”.  This will remove all of the document metadata including some of the rendered text that might be causing the error.
  • Re-run the OCR process.

Solution 6: Convert to TIFF files and back, and then re-run OCR (available in Acrobat Standard and Acrobat Pro).

  • Open the PDF document in Acrobat and choose “File > Save As“.
  • In the “Save As” dialog box, choose TIFF (*.tif, *.tiff) from the Save As Type (Windows) or Format (Mac OS) pop-up menu. Specify a location, and then click Save.  Acrobat saves each page of the PDF document as a separate, sequentially numbered TIFF file.
  • Combine the single pages back into a multipage document and re-run the OCR process.

Solution 7: Convert to XPS file format and back, and then re-run OCR.

  • If your computer has the “XPS” virtual printer installed (it comes with many version of MS Office) then print the file using the “Microsoft XPS Document Writer” printer.
    • The XPS printer will ask you to save the file.
    • Convert the saved XPS file to PDF.
    • Re-run the OCR process on the new PDF.

Solution 8: Try running the OCR using a different program.

Adobe Acrobat Training Videos: Searching Fundamentals

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Editor’s note: there is an updated Acrobat Training Guide – Searching Fundamentals post.

Previous video – Text Recognition

Adobe Acrobat Pro is one of the most popular computer software programs on the market for FDO and CJA panel attorneys.  Since so much of the discovery we currently receive in criminal cases is provided in paper or scanned paper format, Acrobat Pro is an excellent tool to help you to better organize and review it.

In our team’s continued efforts to providing resource to CJA panel attorneys and FDO staff, we are creating a series of training videos. Each short video will address a specific feature in a computer software program with our first set focused on Adobe Acrobat Pro XI.

Future videos we are developing will also be posted on this blog.  Make sure to check back in or sign up to subscribe to our blog to get notices of new posts by email.

These videos do not take the place of hands-on training sessions where we can get in depth about a variety of software programs and legal strategies for addressing complex cases, but it hopefully will provide you some basic background information that can help you in your cases.

Adobe Acrobat Training Videos: Text Recognition

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Editor’s note: there is an updated Acrobat Training Guide – Text Recognition post.

Next Video – Searching Fundamentals

Adobe Acrobat Pro is one of the most popular computer software programs on the market for FDO and CJA panel attorneys.  Since so much of the discovery we currently receive in criminal cases is provided in paper or scanned paper format, Acrobat Pro is an excellent tool to help you to better organize and review it.

In our team’s continued efforts to providing resource to CJA panel attorneys and FDO staff, we are creating a series of training videos. Each short video will address a specific feature in a computer software program with our first set focused on Adobe Acrobat Pro XI.

These videos do not take the place of hands-on training sessions where we can get in depth about a variety of software programs and legal strategies for addressing complex cases, but it hopefully will provide you some basic background information that can help you in your cases.

The first video (created by Kelly Scribner and Alex Roberts) gives key information to consider when using OCR text recognition with Adobe Acrobat Pro for scanned paper. Though much has been written about the incredible functionality available with Adobe Acrobat Pro, this short seven minute demonstration focuses on points that we think are most important for you to consider when using OCR in Acrobat Pro.

Future videos we are developing will also be posted on this blog.  Make sure to check back in or sign up to subscribe to our blog to get notices of new posts by email.

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