Office PDF tools

The Acrobat-style tools: fill forms, sign, add headers, footers, watermarks and Bates numbers, page labels and bookmarks, make scans searchable, redact for real, archive as PDF/A, and run any of it on many files at once. They are in the Document and Batch menus in every profile.

Forms

When a PDF has fillable fields, the status bar says "This document has a form you can fill in". Click a field and type, or tick the boxes, then save. File → Export → Export flattened PDF burns the filled fields into the pages.

Signatures

1. Click Sign (on the toolbar in the Office profile, in the Insert group in Pro profiles).
2. Draw your signature in the box (Clear to start over) and click Use this signature.
3. Click the page where it goes, or drag a box to size it.

Next time, your last signature is offered as a button in the Sign dialog. This places a picture of your handwritten signature; certificate-based digital signatures are not built in.

Header, footer, watermark and Bates numbers

Document → Header, footer, watermark & Bates…

• Header & footer: six boxes (Header left, centre, right; Footer left, centre, right). Insert: buttons add {page}, {pages}, {date}, {file}, {bates} and {label}. You can also type {time} or a date format such as {date:DD/MM/YYYY}. Set Size, Colour and Opacity.
• Watermark / stamp: text such as DRAFT, CONFIDENTIAL or ISSUED FOR CONSTRUCTION {date}, with size, colour, opacity, Rotation, position, Behind page content and Box around text.
• Bates numbering: Prefix, Start, Digits, Suffix. Turning it on puts {bates} in Footer right.
• Pages & margins (pt): which pages (all, a range, Odd pages, Even pages) and the margins.
• Saved settings… keeps a setup for next time.

Check the preview of the current page, then Apply: "Added to N page(s). Save to keep the change."

Page labels

Document → Page labels… sets the page "numbers" shown in the page box and in other viewers.

• Numbering ranges: for each range, From page, Style (1, 2, 3 / i, ii, iii / I, II, III / a, b, c / A, B, C / none), a prefix and Start at. Add range for more.
• One label per page: one line per page, e.g. sheet numbers E-101, E-102… Empty lines keep the current label.

Save to keep the change. To read sheet numbers from the title blocks automatically, use AutoMark (Sheet sets, links and review).

Bookmarks

Document → Edit bookmarks (or the Edit bookmarks button on the left rail, bookmark icon) opens the bookmark editor on the left. The Bookmarks button (book icon) only lists them for navigating. In the editor:

• Add bookmark for the current page, or select text on the page and Add bookmark from the selected text.
• Point the selected bookmark at the current page.
• Move up / Move down; Nest under the previous bookmark (Tab) and Move out one level (Shift+Tab).
• Add a bookmark per page from page labels, Sort by page, Delete.
• Double-click a bookmark to rename it.

Click Save in the editor (or Revert to undo), then save the document.

Make scans searchable (OCR)

1. Document → Recognize text (OCR)…
2. Choose the pages, the Language, and Drawings (scattered labels) or Documents (paragraphs). Skip pages that already have text saves time.
3. Recognize.

A searchable copy opens in a new tab with invisible text over each recognized word; the original is not changed. Save the copy. English works offline; other languages are downloaded the first time they are used.

Redaction (removing content for real)

Covering text with a black box is not enough: the text is still in the file. iCOS PDF really removes text, image pixels and drawing lines under the boxes.

1. Mark what must go, in any of these ways:
   • Document → Mark area for redaction, then drag rectangles (choose another tool to stop);
   • select text on the page, then Document → Mark selected text for redaction;
   • Document → Find text to redact…: a word, name or number (Whole words, Match case, Regular expression), or Find all: e-mail addresses, phone numbers, SIN / 9-digit IDs, postal codes, dollar amounts. Tick the hits and Mark N for redaction;
   • right-click a rectangle → Use as redaction area.
2. Document → Apply redactions…: choose the Box colour (Black / White), whether to Burn the document's other markups into the redacted copy, and which hidden data to Also remove. Click Redact.
3. A redacted copy opens in a new tab and a Redaction report shows what was removed. "Verified: no text remains inside any redaction area" means it is safe. If it says Verification FAILED, do not share the copy.
4. Save the redacted copy. The original is not changed.

Document → Remove redaction marks (or right-click → Not a redaction area) removes marks you no longer want. Encrypted PDFs can be redacted in the desktop app, which removes the encryption while redacting.

Sanitize (remove hidden data)

Document → Sanitize document… makes a copy without hidden information. Tick what to remove: metadata, attachments, JavaScript and actions, page thumbnails, tag structure, all comments, orphan form fields and XFA data. Sanitize; the copy opens in a new tab.

PDF/A for archiving

Document → Save as PDF/A-2b…: enter the Title and author, choose whether to Flatten markups and form fields, then Create PDF/A copy. The report lists what was changed and any problems that could not be fixed (for example fonts that are not embedded). Conformance is not claimed: check the file with veraPDF before relying on it for archiving.

Batch processing

Batch → Batch process… runs steps on many files:

1. Files: Add files, Add folder (with Include subfolders) or Add open documents.
2. Steps (run in this order): Header / footer / watermark / Bates, Text stamp, Flatten markups & forms, OCR, Sanitize, PDF/A-2b.
3. Output: Choose output folder… and a File name suffix.
4. Process N file(s). A table shows the result per file; Save report (CSV) keeps it.

Batch → Batch print… prints many files in one go.

Related

• Pages and files
• Viewing drawings (layers, search)
• Sheet sets, links and review