Home tab

Use the Home tab to access commonly used settings.

Tip To find tools in other tabs, see Ribbon, tabs and panels or use the Find a Tool function at the top right.

Pages group

Extract icon Extract and Insert: Extract pages from the current document or insert pages into it. When extracting, select one or more pages and whether to keep or drop extracted pages in the current document. When inserting, you can build up a file list from multiple folders, select page ranges (with a preview facility) and define an insertion location. These operations are also possible in Document Assembly mode. Use Extract and Insert or a shortcut menu to replace pages.

Delete icon Delete: Remove current or selected pages or define a page range.

Document assembly icon Document assembly: Transform the current view (as set by Scroll options in the View tab) to a set of smaller pages, to make it easier to rearrange pages within the current document or between multiple documents. Each page has a number bar to allow easy page dragging. Document Assembly view is applied to all open documents. A separate tool allows pages to be renumbered. This tool is available only in Document Assembly mode and becomes active only if the current document contains auto-generated page numbering in a header or footer. When clicked, it applies the updated page order to the real page numbering.

To exit Document Assembly view, click its tool again. Open the Pages panel to see and work with thumbnails of all pages in the current document.

Create group

Open one or more source files for PDF creation. Select Combine files to transform the source files into a single PDF. Select From File to have each source file saved to separate PDF documents.

From Scanner Select From Scanner to access a list of scanning options. Use the list to setup a scanner, then scan to a new document or append the scans to the current document. In Power PDF Advanced, you can use Scan and Markup (to have a defined word or phrase or pattern highlighted, crossed-out, underlined or marked for redaction in all scanned pages). Power PDF Advanced also offers a Scan Inbox facility ( Advanced Processing > File), that automatically generates PDF files from any scans directed to a defined Inbox folder.

Select Combine All (Combine All) to copy the content of all opened documents into one document. See Combine currently opened files into one PDF with the Combine All command for details.

Page Rotate group

Rotate icon Rotate pages: Select the current page, selected pages or a page range and select from three rotation values. This command really rotates the pages, so the rotation persists when the file is opened again. Use the View tab to temporarily rotate the view.

Convert group

Office Application icons Convert PDF to leading targets (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), making them more editable. Clicking any of the buttons will launch the Convert Pages dialog box.

Searchable PDF icon Make PDF Searchable: Transforms Image-only PDF files or files with image-only parts containing scanned text to a searchable PDF; it does this by running OCR (Optical Character Recognition) on the image-only parts to create or supplement the document's text layer. A drop-down list allows the generated texts to be proofread to improve text accuracy.

More conversion target formats are available in the Other drop-down.

Tools group

Edit Text icon Edit Text: Select text blocks to modify them. Text blocks cannot be selected in image-only PDF pages. Double-clicking in a text block allows the text to be modified. The shortcut menu of a selected text offers additional commands. For details see Editing Text with the Edit Text Tool and Text Format tab.

Typewriter icon Typewriter: Add text to any free place on a PDF page and define properties to be applied. Typewriter text becomes an integral part of the PDF at saving time.

Reduce icon Reduce: Reduce file size by removing unneeded elements, or Optimize the current file, which usually delivers a smaller file, partly by lowering picture quality.

Split icon Split: Split the current document based on the specified criteria.

Trial mode / Trial Expired

If the trial period is not over yet, then the title of the tab displays as Trial Mode (x days), where x is the number of remaining days. If the trial period is over, and Power PDF is not activated, then Trial Expired is shown as the title and Power PDF runs in Reader Mode only. You can purchase, activate or launch the product info web page with the commands in this group.

PaperPort Desktop group and tool

PaperPort icon Switch to the PaperPort desktop displaying the current file along with all others located in the file folder.This tool appears only if the PaperPort application is detected on the computer.