Adobe Acrobat is packed with powerful tools that streamline document management, enhance security, and boost productivity.
Here are five standout features that can transform the way you work with PDFs—including OCR recognition, combining files, splitting files, redaction, and Bates stamping—along with links to step-by-step instructions for each.
1. OCR (Optical Character Recognition)
OCR technology in Adobe Acrobat turns scanned documents or images into editable, searchable PDFs. This eliminates the need for manual data entry and allows you to search, extract, and edit text from any printed document instantly. OCR is essential for archiving, compliance, and making scanned files accessible for further editing or sharing.
Instructions can be found here: How to use OCR in Adobe Acrobat.
2. Combining Files
Adobe Acrobat makes it easy to merge multiple files—whether they’re PDFs, images, or other document types—into a single, organized PDF. You can arrange, reorder, and even resize pages before finalizing the combined file, which is perfect for creating comprehensive reports or presentations.
Instructions can be found here: How to combine files in Acrobat.
3. Splitting Files
Need to break a large PDF into smaller, more manageable sections? Acrobat’s split feature lets you divide documents by page ranges, file size, or bookmarks. This is ideal for sharing specific sections or simplifying large file management. I only recently discovered this feature when I ran into pdf page limits for uploads to certain applications. This function divides your pdf into smaller pdfs based on the criteria you select, e.g. by number of pages.
Instructions can be found here: How to split PDFs in Acrobat.
4. Redaction
Protect sensitive information by permanently removing text, images, or data from your PDF with the redaction tool. Acrobat allows you to search for specific words, patterns (like credit card numbers), or manually select content to redact. You can customize the appearance of redaction marks for clarity or compliance.
Instructions can be found here: How to redact in Adobe Acrobat.
5. Bates Stamping
The days of applying the Bates tamp by hand are long over. For legal and discovery processes, Bates stamping assigns unique, sequential numbers to each page across multiple documents. This helps track, reference, and organize large volumes of paperwork efficiently. Acrobat automates this process, saving time and reducing errors.
instructions can be found here: How to Bates Stamp in Adobe PDF.
Conclusion
Mastery of these Adobe Acrobat features empower users to work smarter, faster, and more securely with PDF documents.