Securing Email & Editing PDFs

Question: Hi, if I use Eudora from off campus are my password and email transfers safe?

Answer: If you are running IMAP or POP over SSL, which we support on mailserv, yes. The important part is protecting your password, which you only use when reading your email, so you need the SSL connection only when reading your mail. Note that "mail transfers," either sending or receiving, are not high-security in any case. Having an SSL connection for this part doesn't help a whole lot, because the mail will be transferred unencrypted from mail server to server, and will sit on the disk unencrypted. So either don't worry about it (for most mail), or encrypt the mail yourself using PGP, GPG, or some other public-key program.

Bob Goldstein, ACCC Systems

Turning SSL on in Eudora: If you only have one "Persona" (account), then use Tools -> Options -> Checking Mail, then select Required Alternate Port from the dropdown list in the Secure Sockets When Receiving box on the right, then click OK.

If you have more than one Persona, then click the Persona tag (in the pane with the Mailboxes tab), right-click on the Persona for which you want to use SSL, click Properties, the Incoming Mail tab, and again select Secure Sockets When Receiving.

It would be nice if the Last SSL Info button would tell you whether SSL was turned on, but it doesn't. You can tell by clicking on the spinning ying-yang when your email is being downloaded. This opens the Task Status window showing the progress of the download and it'll say SSL while the mail is downloading. (Look fast!)

In Outlook: The ACCC doesn't support Outlook for email, but here's a hint. It's an option on your Mail account, SMTP tab, Server Requires Authentication. How you get there depends on what type of Windows and Outlook you're using.

Question: I have a PDF form that I need to edit. It was composed in Word and the form fields were created using Acrobat 5.0. Now I want to add/insert a line of text and form fields about three-fourths down the page. I've been unable to find instructions on how to do this in the Acrobat online help (I looked under "insert," "move," etc.). Is there a way that I can edit the lower portion of the form without starting over? Thanks.

Answer: Acrobat Advanced Editing Tips

To move printable items (text, lines, images), you use the arrow tool ("touch-up-object tool"), which is by default hidden behind the open-T tool ("touch-up-text tool"). You can move things by dragging or with the cursor keys (hold down Control to move them faster). When working with multiple pages, to move an object from one page to another, select it, then cut it (Control-X), move to the target page and paste (Control-V), then move it to the desired location (it will be exactly where it was on the source page). To select and move multiple items at once, you can hold Control down while clicking them or drag a rectangle over them. Warning: there are often invisible background objects (and objects often include other objects, especially after optimizing the document), so you might be selecting or moving too much.

To move form fields, use the form tool itself. While it is active, you can also duplicate (copy and paste) form fields for faster form creation.

To insert text, use the open-T tool ("touch-up-text tool") and Control-click to start a new line of text. To change its attributes (e.g., font, point size), type the line, then right-click it and choose Select Line, then Attributes. Pick the font of your choice and hit Tab or Enter to commit. You can move the line sideways with its diamond-shaped handles at left, but up and down only by switching to the arrow tool.

Inserting graphics is not so straightforward. I occasionally do it by creating a separate PDF with just that graphic, then adding that page to my document (Document -> Insert Pages, or just drag the thumbnails over), and finally moving the graphic where I want it before deleting the now unnecessary extra page. When trying to add lines it is much easier to play with the existing ones, making copies and moving those.

Hope this helps,

Volker Kleinschmidt
ACCC Instructional Technology Lab