Electronic Case Filing

Acrobat 6 - Compatibility Issues 1
Creating PDF by Direct Scan

The following instructions are for use with the Adobe Acrobat 6. This being the newest version of Acrobat available, many questions have arisen about the backward compatibility with versions 4 and 5. The following information details the step necessary to insure that files created in Acrobat 6 can be viewed in previous versions. If you are using another .pdf generating software or a different version of Adobe Acrobat, please refer to the appropriate documentation or web site for detailed information they may have provided on this topic.

PDF documents are commonly created in one of the following ways: 1-Creating PDF by Direct Scan, 2-Printing to PDF Writer (from within another application), or 3-Printing to PDF Distiller. This topic will detail Creating PDF by Direct Scan. For information on the other options, click the link provided.


STEP 1 - Click on the Create PDF button on the toolbar (or choose File - Create PDF from the menu bar).

  • Choose From Scanner...

STEP 2 - The CREATE PDF FROM SCANNER screen displays.

  • Choose applicable information in the Device: field.
  • The Compatible with: field must be changed to Acrobat 4.0 and later.
  • Click on Scan.

STEP 3 - After scan is complete do the following (NOTE: Do not use Save or Save As located under the File toolbar option at this time).

  • From the FILE link on the toolbar, choose Reduce File Size.

STEP 4 - The REDUCE FILE SIZE screen displays.

  • If not already, change Compatible with field to Acrobat 4.0 and later.
  • Click the [OK] button.

STEP 5 - The SAVE AS screen displays.

  • Name and save document in appropriate location.
  • Click the [Save] button.

NOTE: Check document properties after saving. The saved document should now be compatible with previous versions of Acrobat. The document properties can be checked fairly easy after this process to insure backward compatibility. Click here for detailed instructions on Checking Document Properties.

These procedures for saving your .pdf will apply any time you modify a .pdf document in Acrobat 6 (e.g. inserting a page, deleting a page etc...). Use these procedures at all times when saving .pdf files instead of the Save or Save As menu options. The SAVE or SAVE AS option should NEVER be used on .pdf files that are being submitted to the court.
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