ABA

Metadata is a hot topic in the legal field right now -- heck, it's a hot topic in a lot of fields; this article on Document Security 101 (http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2005/12/document_securi.html) shows how a little bit of information left in the metadata can embarrass or cause harm. And it's usually not the technology that's causing the problem -- it's more likely to be user error. It's also something to think about from an ethical standpoint -- This month's Eye on Ethics (http://www.abanet.org/media/youraba/200601/article01.html) discusses the precautions you should take with your documents before pressing the "Send" button. Dennis Kennedy, Evan Schaeffer and I also discussed this issue in our Thinking E-Discovery Column, Mining the Value from Metadata (http://www.discoveryresources.org/04_om_thinkingED.html). Our article talks mostly about making sure you rid unwanted metadata from your Word documents; check out Clean Up Your PDFs (http://www.pdfzone.com/article2/0,1895,1897227,00.asp) to learn that even if you do the right things with Word, you're still not home free if your PDFs contain metadata.

When you add information to a PDF file using Adobe Acrobat you are, for present purposes, adding a Comment. A ?Comment? being Adobe-speak for notes, free text boxes, lines, shapes, etc. (the things you find on the Drawing Markups toolbar). As you might expect, all comments have attributes that we in the Windows world have come to know as Properties (nothing like Property that you studied in the first year of law school). For example, a line has properties that define its color, thickness, how it begins and how it ends (I know it sounds a lot like that ?whole bundle of sticks? thing, but it?s not). Text boxes have two sets of properties, one set for the box (fill color, fill opacity, outline color and size, etc.) and another for the text (font, size, line spacing, justification, etc.). Here?s the tip: Control+E (big E, little e, it doesn?t matter) activates the Properties Bar. The Properties Bar gives you a quick way to control the properties of Comments (well, most Comments; just like the law, there have to be some exceptions). To use it, you need to make a Comment, any Comment, the active element in the currently open PDF file. How? Left click on the Comment (see those little squares at the ends of the line or the corners of a text box? That means this is not the active element). Now press the Control key and the letter ?e? at the same time. Presto ? the Properties Bar appears. But wait, there?s more. Remember, there are two sets of properties for text boxes. If the comment that you activated was a text box, then the Property Bar may appear to only control the properties of the box. What?s up with that? Well, because there are two sets of properties, Acrobat has to differentiate between the box and the text. To activate the text portion of a text box, double-click inside the box. Now look at the Properties Bar, it automatically changed from box properties to text properties. Left-click outside the text box so it is no longer the active element. Left click on the text box again and the Properties Bar shifts back to controlling those properties. Okay, so you want to know what the exception to the rule is? Notes. Notes are Comments, but the Properties bar works slightly different with Notes. First, notice that Notes have an ?Options? button. It doesn?t do much, at least not for easily setting Properties. And, if you left-click on the top or bottom border of a Note, not much happens. The Properties bar doesn?t change or anything like that. But left-click in the text area (in a text box you would have to double click) and now the properties bar switches to the Notes properties. Want to change the Properties of a Comment? Control+E. You got it. Stay tuned for the next Acrobat Power Tip - Default properties.

At ABA TECHSHOW, we talk quite a bit about the "paperless office." Indeed, the idea of being able to free up shelf and storage space by converting your client files to digital format has great appeal to many lawyers. But as with all great ideas, there are some caveats; namely, the ethical issues you should consider before going paperless. Fortunately, the folks at ABA's Eye on Ethics discuss this question in a recent article, "Client Files: From Paper to Kilobytes." (http://www.abanet.org/media/youraba/200512/article01.html). Well worth a read if you're thinking about digitizing your documents.