Being in eDiscovery, many times I find myself having to perform the same task on hundreds or thousands of PDFs – for example, removing hidden information and comments. Thankfully, Adobe has a feature called “Actions” that allows you to apply one or more routine sets of commands to PDFs. Instead of opening every document you need to modify and then repeating the same task, you can perform the same command on several documents at once by using the “Action Wizard”.
You can choose from preset actions or create your own action. I like to use this site to download prepackaged actions: https://acrobatusers.com/actions-exchange/. Creating your own action is simple using the Action Wizard. Below is an example of how I created the “Remove Hidden Information and Comments” Action.
Note all screenshots are from Adobe Acrobat XI.
Creating a New Action
1) Go to the Tools tab on the right, scroll down to the Action Wizard section and select Create New Action
2) This will bring up the “Choose Tools to Add” screen. Navigate to the Protection section – Remove Hidden Information and then click the green + to move that tool to the right.
3) Under Remove Hidden Information tool, select Specify Settings. My standard action includes the following three settings, but I change these as needed. Select OK when complete.
4) Unselect the Prompt User button. Doing so, prevents you from having to see the Remove Hidden Information popup for every PDF.
5) To allow automatic saving, add another tool to your Action. Go to the Save and Export section – Save – and move Save to the right
6) Select Specify Settings. For my action I want to replace the original file (Keep original file names option), but you can change to whatever settings you prefer. Select OK when finished.
7) Choose Save to save and name your Action
8) Select Close to close out of the Manage Actions Screen
9) To Run your Action, go to Tools – Action Wizard – and click on your Action:
10) Choose your PDF universe by using the “Add Files” or “Add Folder” options.
11) Click Start when ready.
12) You can export and send your Action to others using the Export feature. Navigate to Tools - Manage Actions. Choose Export and name accordingly
13) To import a prepackaged or previously created Action, navigate to Tools – Manage Actions and select your file.
14) Select Open and Import. Your Action will now be available in the Action List.
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