unable to update default footer via Edit PDF (Acrobat Pro DC)

Report · Jun 27, 2016

Greetings,

Running Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, 2015 Release (Continuous) Version 2015.010.20056

on Mac OS 10.11.5 machines (i7 mac mini & i5 Mac Book Pro).

Goal: open/read in HTML file to generate PDF format version with custom footer on every page.

Problem: in "Edit PDF", accessing "Header & Footer" drop-down menu, unable to EITHER "Update..." default footer in left-bottom corner OR "Remove..." and then "Add..." that shows up after Saving PDF file.

When HTML file is initially read in, the format of what I take to be the default footer in left bottom corner of every page is "filename.html[mm/dy/yr, hr:mi:se PM]" (where hr:mi:se PM is 2 digits for time of day hour:minute:second followed by AM or PM). I want to delete this and replace it with the file title on the bottom left and page number on bottom right of every page.

Choosing "Update..." from the "Header & Footer" drop-down menu generates a notifier window with the message: "Adobe Acrobat DC cannot update the header or footer information in this document."

Next way tried: choose "Remove..." from the "Header & Footer" drop-down menu which appears to work, and then choose "Add..." to add the desired footer which generates the file title on bottom left and page number on bottom right of every page.

This appears to work inside Acrobat Pro, however the saved file does not contain the footer at the bottom of every/any page even though it does appear inside Acrobat Pro after performing the "Next way tried" in previous paragraph.

Report · Jun 27, 2016

The header/footer in a document converted from PDF is only "normal" PDF content, and not marked as a header or footer. When you apply a header/footer via Acrobat, this information is stored differently than a normal PDF line, so that Acrobat can modify or remove it again. What you can do is to use the redaction feature in Adobe Acrobat Pro, to remove the header/footer information you have in your document, and then add a new header via Acrobat. Once you do that, you can then modify or remove it with Acrobat's tools.

Report · Jun 30, 2016

"The header/footer in a document converted from PDF is only "normal" PDF content, and not marked as a header or footer. When you apply a header/footer via Acrobat, this information is stored differently than a normal PDF line, so that Acrobat can modify or remove it again."

The only "header/footer information" I'm aware of being able to create is that which I define in HTML in the <title> element inside <head>. If I define text inside <title>, this text shows up inside Acrobat Pro (AP) at the top left corner - placement which I do not want. Alternatively I do not put any text inside <title> and after reading the HTML file into AP there is now no text in the top left corner, only the unwanted "filename.html[mm/dy/yr, hr:mi:se PM]" I describe in the 4th paragraph above.

"What you can do is to use the redaction feature in Adobe Acrobat Pro, to remove the header/footer information you have in your document, and then add a new header via Acrobat. Once you do that, you can then modify or remove it with Acrobat's tools."

Unfortunately I do not know what "the redaction feature" is - how do I access it?

Further, as I write above, I am endeavoring to produce the result I want - as far as I can understand - by NOT including any header/footer text using an empty <title> element, then "Remove..."ing the unwanted auto-generated "filename.html[mm/dy/yr, hr:mi:se PM]" in the bottom left corner, and then "Add..."ing my own defined footer - inside the Add Header and Footer window - via the Saved Settings selection button (in the top-left corner) - which DOES generate the file title I want in the bottom left and page number in the bottom right of every page. Unfortunately, the saved PDF file does not include this footer - even though it appears as I want it to inside AP's Edit PDF.

Report · Jun 27, 2016

Or change HTML conversion settings.

Report · Jun 30, 2016

Why do you not remove the unwanted header by changing conversion settings so they are not made at all.

Report · Jul 01, 2016

When you select to create a new PDF document from a web page, you get this dialog:

Click on the "Settings..." button to open a dialog where you can specify the conversion settings:

As you can see, there is a "Place headers and footers on new page" option. When you disable that, you will no longer get the headers/footers added to your new PDF document.

My reference to the redaction feature was for existing documents, where you can no longer go back and recreate them (or don't want to because it takes time). If you have Adobe Acrobat Pro (this feature is not available in Standard), you can find the redaction feature by typing "redact" into the tools search bar:

This will then list all features that use the term "redact" in their name. Redacting a document is a multi-stop process. You can find out how it's done in this tutorial: https://acrobatusers.com/tutorials/remove-and-redact-sensitive-information-from-pdf-files

This is for the previous version of Acrobat, which had a different user interface, but with the search results from above, you should be able to find out where all the tools that get mentioned in the tutorial are.

Report · Jul 16, 2016

Thanks very much Karl - you have answered both/all my questions. Chalk this up to "pilot error" as my original process was to simply choose "File->Open", thus missing the boat entirely on configuration Settings afforded through "File->Create->PDF from Web Page..."