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Preview output (Acrobat Pro)

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  1. Acrobat User Guide
  2. Introduction to Acrobat
    1. Access Acrobat from desktop, mobile, web
    2. Introducing the new Acrobat experience
    3. What's new in Acrobat
    4. Keyboard shortcuts
    5. System Requirements
  3. Workspace
    1. Workspace basics
    2. Opening and viewing PDFs
      1. Opening PDFs
      2. Navigating PDF pages
      3. Viewing PDF preferences
      4. Adjusting PDF views
      5. Enable thumbnail preview of PDFs
      6. Display PDF in browser
    3. Working with online storage accounts
      1. Access files from Box
      2. Access files from Dropbox
      3. Access files from OneDrive
      4. Access files from SharePoint
      5. Access files from Google Drive
    4. Acrobat and macOS
    5. Acrobat notifications
    6. Grids, guides, and measurements in PDFs
    7. Asian, Cyrillic, and right-to-left text in PDFs
  4. Creating PDFs
    1. Overview of PDF creation
    2. Create PDFs with Acrobat
    3. Create PDFs with PDFMaker
    4. Using the Adobe PDF printer
    5. Converting web pages to PDF
    6. Creating PDFs with Acrobat Distiller
    7. Adobe PDF conversion settings
    8. PDF fonts
  5. Editing PDFs
    1. Edit text in PDFs
    2. Edit images or objects in a PDF
    3. Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages
    4. Edit scanned PDFs
    5. Enhance document photos captured using a mobile camera
    6. Optimizing PDFs
    7. PDF properties and metadata
    8. Links and attachments in PDFs
    9. PDF layers
    10. Page thumbnails and bookmarks in PDFs
    11. PDFs converted to web pages
    12. Setting up PDFs for a presentation
    13. PDF articles
    14. Geospatial PDFs
    15. Applying actions and scripts to PDFs
    16. Change the default font for adding text
    17. Delete pages from a PDF
  6. Scan and OCR
    1. Scan documents to PDF
    2. Enhance document photos
    3. Troubleshoot scanner issues when scanning using Acrobat
  7. Forms
    1. PDF forms basics
    2. Create a form from scratch in Acrobat
    3. Create and distribute PDF forms
    4. Fill in PDF forms
    5. PDF form field properties
    6. Fill and sign PDF forms
    7. Setting action buttons in PDF forms
    8. Publishing interactive PDF web forms
    9. PDF form field basics
    10. PDF barcode form fields
    11. Collect and manage PDF form data
    12. About forms tracker
    13. PDF forms help
    14. Send PDF forms to recipients using email or an internal server
  8. Combining files
    1. Combine or merge files into single PDF
    2. Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages
    3. Add headers, footers, and Bates numbering to PDFs
    4. Crop PDF pages
    5. Add watermarks to PDFs
    6. Add backgrounds to PDFs
    7. Working with component files in a PDF Portfolio
    8. Publish and share PDF Portfolios
    9. Overview of PDF Portfolios
    10. Create and customize PDF Portfolios
  9. Sharing, reviews, and commenting
    1. Share and track PDFs online
    2. Mark up text with edits
    3. Preparing for a PDF review
    4. Starting a PDF review
    5. Hosting shared reviews on SharePoint or Office 365 sites
    6. Participating in a PDF review
    7. Add comments to PDFs
    8. Adding a stamp to a PDF
    9. Approval workflows
    10. Managing comments | view, reply, print
    11. Importing and exporting comments
    12. Tracking and managing PDF reviews
  10. Saving and exporting PDFs
    1. Saving PDFs
    2. Convert PDF to Word
    3. Convert PDF to PPTX
    4. Convert PDF to XLSX or XML
    5. Convert PDF to JPG
    6. Convert PDF to PNG
    7. Convert or export PDFs to other file formats
    8. File format options for PDF export
    9. Reusing PDF content
  11. Security
    1. Enhanced security setting for PDFs
    2. Securing PDFs with passwords
    3. Manage Digital IDs
    4. Securing PDFs with certificates
    5. Opening secured PDFs
    6. Removing sensitive content from PDFs
    7. Setting up security policies for PDFs
    8. Choosing a security method for PDFs
    9. Security warnings when a PDF opens
    10. Securing PDFs with Adobe Experience Manager
    11. Protected View feature for PDFs
    12. Overview of security in Acrobat and PDFs
    13. JavaScripts in PDFs as a security risk
    14. Attachments as security risks
    15. Allow or block links in PDFs
  12. Electronic signatures
    1. Sign PDF documents
    2. Capture your signature on mobile and use it everywhere
    3. Send documents for e-signatures
    4. Create a web form
    5. Request e-signatures in bulk
    6. Collect online payments
    7. Brand your account
    8. About certificate signatures
    9. Certificate-based signatures
    10. Validating digital signatures
    11. Adobe Approved Trust List
    12. Manage trusted identities
  13. Printing
    1. Basic PDF printing tasks
    2. Print Booklets and PDF Portfolios
    3. Advanced PDF print settings
    4. Print to PDF
    5. Printing color PDFs (Acrobat Pro)
    6. Printing PDFs in custom sizes
  14. Accessibility, tags, and reflow
    1. Create and verify PDF accessibility
    2. Accessibility features in PDFs
    3. Reading Order tool for PDFs
    4. Reading PDFs with reflow and accessibility features
    5. Edit document structure with the Content and Tags panels
    6. Creating accessible PDFs
    7. Cloud-based auto-tagging
  15. Searching and indexing
    1. Creating PDF indexes
    2. Searching PDFs
  16. Multimedia and 3D models
    1. Add audio, video, and interactive objects to PDFs
    2. Adding 3D models to PDFs (Acrobat Pro)
    3. Displaying 3D models in PDFs
    4. Interacting with 3D models
    5. Measuring 3D objects in PDFs
    6. Setting 3D views in PDFs
    7. Enable 3D content in PDF
    8. Adding multimedia to PDFs
    9. Commenting on 3D designs in PDFs
    10. Playing video, audio, and multimedia formats in PDFs
    11. Add comments to videos
  17. Print production tools (Acrobat Pro)
    1. Print production tools overview
    2. Printer marks and hairlines
    3. Previewing output
    4. Transparency flattening
    5. Color conversion and ink management
    6. Trapping color
  18. Preflight (Acrobat Pro)
    1. PDF/X-, PDF/A-, and PDF/E-compliant files
    2. Preflight profiles
    3. Advanced preflight inspections
    4. Preflight reports
    5. Viewing preflight results, objects, and resources
    6. Output intents in PDFs
    7. Correcting problem areas with the Preflight tool
    8. Automating document analysis with droplets or preflight actions
    9. Analyzing documents with the Preflight tool
    10. Additional checks in the Preflight tool
    11. Preflight libraries
    12. Preflight variables
  19. Color management
    1. Keeping colors consistent
    2. Color settings
    3. Color-managing documents
    4. Working with color profiles
    5. Understanding color management

Before you begin

We are rolling out a new, more intuitive product experience. If the screen shown here doesn’t match your product interface, switch to the help for your current experience.

Preview the PDF output

You can simulate how your PDF will appear under different conditions using the Output preview feature. Using the preview menu, you can switch between viewing separations and color warnings. When you select Separations, the bottom half shows ink information and area coverage controls. Opt for Color Warnings to see ink warning details.

Changes made in the Output preview dialog box directly affect your document's appearance. You can also access the Object Inspector here to inspect the document's content. For more information, see View information about the content of a PDF document.

The Output Preview dialog box provides access to the Ink Manager, allowing you to remap spot-color inks for both printing and previewing. Note that ink mapping for previewing only applies when the Output Preview dialog box is open.

To access the Output preview tool, from the All tools menu, select Use print production > Output preview.

Note:

If you are using a color management system (CMS) with accurately calibrated ICC profiles and have calibrated your monitor, the onscreen separation preview colors more closely match the final color separation output.

Acrobat Desktop PDF Output Preview
Output Preview dialog box lets you preview separations, color warnings, and details about individual objects.

Choose simulation profile and preview options

You can select one of the following simulation profiles for simulating how your document looks when printed:

  • Simulate Overprinting: Simulates the blending and overprinting of colors in the color-separated output.
  • Simulate Black Ink: Simulates black and dark colors according to the black specified in the simulation profile. Otherwise, blacks are mapped to the darkest color that the monitor can draw.
  • Simulate Paper Color: simulates how colors may look when they are printed on the paper color. If you deselect this option, then the paper color is monitor white.
  • Set Page Background Color: Displays the page color. Select the colorswatch to choose the color.

View colors by source space or preview specific elements

You can limit which colors are displayed in the preview. You can also view specific element types, such as solid color objects, images, smooth shades, text, and line art. When you select a source color space, you see only the objects in that color space. Limiting colors is useful, for example, for seeing whether a page contains any RGB color or where a spot color is used.

To view colors by source, from Show menu in Output preview dialog, select one of the available options from the Show menu.

Select Show Art, Trim, & Bleed Boxes to preview any page boxes you’ve defined. For more information on defining page boxes, see Set Page Boxes dialog box overview.

Preview color separations

You can preview separation plates and ink coverage to ensure that the printed piece meets your requirements. Although previewing separations on your monitor can help you detect problems without the expense of printing separations, it does not let you preview trapping, emulsion options, printer marks, and halftone screens and resolution. Those settings are best verified with your print service provider using integral or overlay proofs.

To preview color separations, from the Output preview dialog, select Separations from the Preview menu and take any of the following actions:

  • To view one or more separations, select the empty box to the left of each separation name. Each separation appears in its assigned color.
  • To hide one or more separations, deselect the box to the left of each separation name.
  • To view all process or spot plates at once, select the box for Process Plates or Spot Plates.

A single process or spot plate appears as a black plate. This makes objects on a light-colored plate, such as yellow, appear more visible.

Note:

Objects on hidden layers are not included in an onscreen preview.

Check ink coverage

Too much ink can saturate paper and cause drying problems or change the expected color characteristics of the document. Total Area Coverage specifies the total percentage of all inks used. For example, 280 means 280% ink coverage, which could be accomplished with 60C, 60M, 60Y, and 100K. Ask your print service provider for the maximum ink coverage of the press you use for printing. You can then preview the document to identify areas where total ink coverage exceeds the press limit. If you find any problems, you can Alt-click (on Windows) or Option-click (on Mac), the area to insert a comment. The comment is prepopulated with the ink coverage details.

To preview color separations, from the Output preview dialog, select Separations from the Preview menu and take any of the following actions:

  • To set a sample size, choose an option from the Sample Size list. Point Sample specifies the value of the pixel you select. 3 By 3 Average and 5 By 5 Average specify the average value of the specified number of pixels within the area you select. Sample size does not have an impact on the Total Area Coverage warnings. It only has an impact on the percentages next to each of the individual plates.
  • To check for total document coverage, select TotalArea Coverage, and choose a number from the pop-up menu or type a percentage in the box. Highlights identify areas where the ink coverage exceeds that percentage. To change the highlight color, select the colorswatch and then select a new color.
  • To check for specific area coverage, use the pointer to hover over that area in the document window. Ink coverage percentages appear in the ink list next to each ink name.

To record problems, Alt-click (on Windows) or Option-click (on Mac), the area. Acrobat inserts a comment that contains the ink coverage percentages.

Note:

You can adjust ink coverage by converting some spot colors to process colors using the Ink Manager.

Set the background color

You can simulate what your document would look like if printed on color paper.

  1. In the Output preview dialog box, choose Separations from the Preview menu.

  2. Select the Set Page Background Color option at the top of the dialog box, and then select a color.

View color warnings

Output problems can occur when the colors in a document are not reproducible on a particular press, or when rich black is used unintentionally on type. To diagnose such color problems before handing off a PDF for high-end output, you can use the various color warnings in the Output preview dialog box. Pixels in areas that trigger the warning are displayed in the warning color, which is identified by the swatch color next to the warning type.

  1. In the Output preview dialog box, choose Color Warnings from the Preview menu.

  2. Select either or both of the following options:

    • Show Overprinting: Indicates where on the page overprinting appears in color-separated output. If you select Simulate Overprinting in the Output panel of the Advanced Print Setup dialog box, you can also see overprinting effects when you output to a composite printing device. This option is useful for proofing color separations.
      By default, when you print opaque, overlapping colors, the top color knocks out the area underneath. You can use overprinting to prevent knockout and make the topmost overlapping printing ink appear transparent in relation to the underlying ink. The degree of transparency in printing depends on the ink, paper, and printing method used.
    • Rich Black: Indicates areas that print as rich black—process black (K) ink mixed with color inks for increased opacity and richer color. Rich black is used for large areas since you need the extra darkness to make the text look black rather than gray.
      Type the Start Cutoff percentage to define the minimum percentage of black to diagnose the content as rich black. Rich black for this warning is a percentage of black (based on the cutoff value) and any nonzero C, M, or Y.
    Note:

    To change the warning color used in the preview, select a color from the swatches color picker.

View information about the content of a PDF document

Use the Object Inspector dialog box to view image resolution, color mode, transparency, and other information about the content of a document. If you find any problems or issues with an object, you can Alt-click (on Windows) or Option-click (on Mac), the object to insert a comment. The comment is prepopulated with all the details found by the Object Inspector.

  1. In the Preview section of the Output preview dialog box, choose Object Inspector.

  2. Select the document window to view information about the objects that are under the pointer in the Output preview dialog box.

  3. To note problem areas, Alt-click (on Windows) or Option-click (on Mac), the object. Acrobat inserts a comment that contains the information found by the Object Inspector.

Select multiple objects

You can now select multiple objects when the Output preview dialog is open.

To select multiple objects, use Shift + Click. To add a sticky note containing the color values, use Alt + Click (on Windows) or Option + Click (on Mac).

To disable this feature, go to  > Preferences > Page Display. Next, uncheck Use Shift + Click for Multiple Selection with Output Preview checkbox.

Multiple selection with output preview

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