Create and customize PDF Portfolios

Last updated on Oct 30, 2023 | Also applies to Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Acrobat 2017

Create PDF Portfolios

You no longer require Flash Player installed on your system to create or view portfolios. You can easily create folders within your PDF Portfolio, delete component files and folders, edit component filenames, and add and edit descriptions of component files.

Create a basic PDF Portfolio in a few quick steps.

Start Acrobat and choose File > Create > PDF Portfolio.
Drag files into the Create PDF Portfolio dialog box.

Alternatively, choose an option from the Add Files menu. You can add a file, folder of files, pages from a scanner, web page, or items in the clipboard.
Click Create to add the files to the PDF Portfolio.

The selected files are added to your portfolio and a toolbar along with the thumbnails of the files is displayed in the left pane.

a - PDF Portfolio’s secondary toolbar, b - The left pane with files' thumbnails

Note:

In Windows, the Acrobat PDFMaker in Outlook and Lotus Notes can create PDF Portfolios when you convert email messages.

Add files and folders to a PDF Portfolio

Note:

As you cannot change the order of files in the PDF Portfolio, it is recommended to add the files in a sequential order. Also, if you add a folder, the files in the folder are added in the alphabetical order.

You can add content to an existing PDF Portfolio.

From an open PDF Portfolio, do any of the following:
- In the left pane, select Add Files and select Add Files, Add Folder, or Add Web Content.
- To create a folder, select the Create Folder icon in the secondary toolbar.
- To add files from your computer, drag any files or folders to the PDF Portfolio workspace or a folder in the left pane.
Note:

For best performance, keep the total number of component files at 15 or less, and the total size of all component files under 50 MB.

Rearrange files in a PDF Portfolio

In the navigation pane of a PDF Portfolio, do the following:

Drag to rearrange files within a folder of the PDF Portfolio.
Drag a file into a folder or drag a folder to another folder if both are at the same level.

Add web content to a PDF Portfolio

You can link to websites or embed video tags. Linking to web content is useful when you want to reduce the file size of the PDF Portfolio.

In the left pane, select Add Files and select Add Web Content.
Enter a filename and description for the web content that gets added to your PDF Portfolio. This web file links to the web content you specify.
Do one of the following:
- To link to a website, select Add A Web Link, and then add the URL.
- To embed a video tag, select Add An Embed Tag, and then paste the video’s embed code. Video-sharing websites usually include a way to copy a video’s embed code. For example, a website could include an Embed box that shows the code and other embedding options.

Convert multimedia files in a PDF Portfolio

You can convert multimedia files, such as MP3 to PDF within a PDF Portfolio. You can also convert these files to PDF if they are encoded in H.264 (with AAC audio): MOV, M4V, MP4, 3GP, and 3G2. (H.264 and AAC are encoding and compression options for movies.)

From an open PDF Portfolio, right-click/Control-click one or more multimedia files in the PDF Portfolio and select Convert To PDF.
If a dialog box appears, specify the options as needed and click OK.

Remove or extract files and folders from a PDF Portfolio

If you delete a folder, all files inside it are deleted from the PDF Portfolio. You can also extract one or more components from the PDF Portfolio and save them separately.

- From an open PDF Portfolio, select one or more files or folders in the PDF Portfolio and press Delete or click the Delete File icon to remove the selected item from the portfolio.
- If you want to extract (or save) an item from your portfolio, click the Extract From Portfolio icon , select a location where you want to save the selected item, and click Save.

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