Foxit Phantom PDF - Part 1

 

This is the first of what I hope will be a series on using our new Foxit Phantom PDF software.  We did a little training, but a lot of people didn’t attend it and, perhaps, this needs to cut into bite sized pieces. 

1.      Foxit can do anything Adobe Acrobat can do – and sometimes better.  The main reason we went this direction was the redaction capability in the Business version, which was less expensive than Acrobat Pro. Not everyone has a license for the Business version – we made some judgment calls on how different individuals in the firm will use the software.  After doing this job since early 2015, I have a good sense of everyone’s capabilities and work styles.  I chose Standard for individuals who are very likely to rely on an assistant than work the program themselves.  Assistants, for the most part, have the Business version.  If you ended up with a Standard license and want the Business license, just ask.  We’ll find out whether it’s right for you and if it is, no problem.

2.      Foxit has OCR capability and it is very robust.  In fact, it can be too robust as I discovered over the weekend.  It altered the appearance of an important document because I wasn’t familiar with the engine and chose the wrong settings.  There are basically three main functions of OCR.  To get there, choose “Convert” from the menu tabs.  On the menu bar, you’ll see a section called “Convert” with three icons.

Quick OCR uses default or your previous settings to run OCR in a file.  It’s easy if you know what to expect, but it might not do what you want for reasons I’m about to explain.

Under the OCR selection you’ll get a choice to do multiple files or just the one file that you have open.  Once you make a selection, you’ll be given other options including a page range (sometimes you only want one page out of 500), a different language, or different text options.  Those text options near the bottom are really important.  If you choose “Editable Text” you will find that the OCR engine alters the image in the document a bit, especially poor scans like you might get out of older Official Records.  Don’t choose that if all you want to do is search and highlight text in the document.  To avoid the risk of alterations (it does not significantly alter a really clean document), pick “Searchable Text Image” instead. 

There is another interesting feature that allows you to choose what gets OCR treatment.  If you check the box to show suspects, the engine will run then show you the things that it concludes require OCR treatement.  You can decide whether it is right or wrong in the box that pops up.  This can be very good in a poor document when the engine is having trouble recognizing a word correctly.  You don’t have to accept it.

3.      Basic functions are easy and most of them can be found under the “Home” tab on the menu bar.  Most of us cut and paste out of documents, which can be done with the “Select” tool.  We also highlight lines, which can be done with the “Highlight” tool – but it helps if the doc has been given OCR treatment first.  The “Snapshot” function, which is frequently used to cut and paste images or whole paragraphs for use in a brief or presentation is also available here.  You’ll also find that the Quick OCR icon is on this menu, too.  In fact, most of the “Home” functions are duplicated elsewhere – this is just the place the most frequently used tools live.

4.      Docusign is built into Foxit.  If you go to the “Protect” tab on the menu bar, you’ll find it as an icon there.  If you have an account already, you can just log in.  If not, you can sign up for one here, too, which will take you to the Docusign website.  Once that is set up and working, you can send documents to others for signatures.  This may require a subscription, which the firm isn’t currently providing en masse.  It may be a while before we’re using this tool, so I didn’t see the point in buying a lot of licenses when we probably only have a handful of users who need it.