By Tisha Davis and Joe Wanzala
Adobe Acrobat is generally used or thought of only as a document review tool, but it’s “Full Screen” mode means it can double as a presentation tool. This is especially handy because trial exhibits commonly already exist as PDF (Portable Document Format) files. Furthermore, cost considerations, practical expediency, or technical limitations can make it a good choice for certain situations.
Continue readingEditor’s note: this is an update on the Acrobat Training Videos – Text Recognition video post. A related post is Three types of PDFs.
Introduction
This is a brief guide on the text recognition feature in Adobe Acrobat1. OCR, which stands for Optical Character Recognition – is a process which adds an invisible text layer to scanned paper documents or screenshots to help make them text searchable. While OCR can be very helpful in terms of search, it is not perfect. The computer is interpreting pictures of letters and characters in documents and attempting to turn them into text. Sometimes, those translations are incorrect (Figures 1 and 2).
Editor’s note: This is an update to the Adobe Acrobat Training Videos: Searching Fundamentals post. A related post is Three Types of PDFs.
Basic Search
This is a brief guide on the fundamentals of searching PDFs using Adobe Acrobat Pro. We will review how to run searches within a single PDF and across multiple PDFs. Searches can even be run on an entire folder of documents such as one that contains all the discovery you receive in a case. Searching in Acrobat will be useful only if the PDF files have searchable text. For scanned paper, you must make sure that they have been OCR’d first. OCR stands for ‘Optical Character Recognition’, and it is a process that reads pictures and turns them in letters and words so that they can be searched.
You can search not only the text of a document, but also any Adobe comments and bookmarks made on it. Searches can be run using either the “Find” or “Advanced Search” options. The way in which search results are displayed and what additional features may be available depend on the search tool chosen. The ‘Find’ tool can perform a quick search. With a PDF file open, display the ‘Find’ toolbar by choosing ‘Find’ from the main menu (Figure 1). There is also a ‘Find’ toolbar in the upper right-hand corner of the document which can be activated by clicking on the magnifying glass icon or by pressing ‘Control+F’ on your keyboard (Figure 2).
Continue readingPreparing exhibits for trial or court hearings, though not glamorous, is an essential task in the practice of courtroom litigation. Depending on the volume and type of exhibits, this necessary task can quickly turn tedious if you must print each exhibit, affix a physical sticker, fill out the exhibit and case information by hand, then scan and submit the stickered exhibit. In the heat of trial where last minute changes take place frequently, it is easy to make mistakes. However, with the right type of technology, such as Adobe Acrobat Pro (or Standard), this process can be done more smoothly, help reduce opportunities for making errors, and done more quickly than the old school method of stickers and paper If you have Adobe Acrobat*, we suggest considering using digital (electronic) exhibit stickers for your next case.
Continue readingIntroduction
Technologies that allow for easier review of ediscovery in native format have become more affordable and accessible. Working with files in native format has several advantages including avoiding loss of potentially relevant information, access to metadata and better searchability. Email is one of the most common of the native formats produced in discovery. This article will explore some approaches for processing email and identify a number of low-cost of tools that can assist. (This article deals with the processing but not the substantive review of emails for case analysis – for this you should consider other tools such as CaseMap, or – for larger collections of emails – review platforms such as Casepoint or IPRO.)
The tools and approaches you select will depend on a combination of three factors: (1) volume, (2) format(s) and (3) the defense team goals. While a single tool might facilitate a discreet goal, more involved goals may require different approaches with a combination of tools. These scenarios can be ends in themselves or phases in an overall workflow. This article does not try to anticipate every possible situation that might arise but will explore a few common scenarios.
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