Introduction - Adobe Acrobat and PDF for Architecture, Engineering, and Construction - page 4

Welcome to our topic
The AEC fields are under constant pressure to work quicker, better and cheaper. Through the processes
identified in our topic, Acrobat will help you achieve this goal by realizing time and cost savings.Areas in
which you can apply the knowledge in this topic include:
x Assembling and converting source materials for the bid package. Paper copies are expensive to print
and distribute.Working with bid sheets. Well-designed PDF forms prevent errors and save time in bid
tabulation.
x Making the submission. Paper submittals are expensive and time consuming. Acrobat electronically
automates and manages the process, saving days!
x Project closeout. Instead of rolls of redlines and boxes of manuals, the project becomes an electronic
Owner's Manual that lasts throughout the finished product's lifetime.
Our topic is aimed at a professional audience, both practitioners and students, in a variety of engineering,
architecture, and construction sectors. PDF has been a defacto standard in document sharing and
distribution for some time.
Table 1.1 identifies a number of common disciplines and how relevant PDF is to that discipline. We
have also outlined specific features in PDF and this topic that are of particular importance to the different
disciplines.
Learning for the Future
This topic will prepare you for the next AEC quantum leap. You will have to learn the fundamentals of
PDF and Acrobat to do the job, just as you did to learn basic engineering. The topic is designed to teach
Acrobat within the framework of a design-build environment as you follow the processes in an AEC
project.
You will prepare a bidset using the Acrobat PDFMakers, macros installed into a number of programs
when Acrobat is installed, as well as the Adobe PDF Printer, a printer driver that generates PDF files
from print commands.
Acrobat 7 Professional includes two different ways to produce forms. You can work with the Forms
tools within Acrobat, or use Adobe Designer, a dedicated forms program accessible directly from within
Acrobat.
In the topic, you will learn how to make a simple survey form in Adobe Designer. Using the knowledge,
you can design your own project forms, such as an electronic bid submittal form that can even be linked to
a database to identify irregularities in the bidding process.
Adobe has taken the paper model for submittal review and tracking and automated it electronically.
Acrobat coordinates the review process using the Tracker and a great set of commenting tools. A major
new feature for users of Acrobat 7 Professional is the ability to enable users of Adobe Reader to use
Drawing Markups and Commenting tools, effectively expanding access to PDF tracking of documents to
millions of additional users. This new feature ties in external users that do not have access to the full
program. Adobe is providing a big feature for free.