Hi all!

I'm part time university student. Now, most professors make their slides they use in their lectures available online.
One of those files is in .pdf format. This is not a problem to print, but the professor has used a blue background on almost all of the pages. If I'd have to print these pages as-is, then this will most likely cost me a fortune on ink.
So I'd like to remove that blue background. I have acrobat 5.0, but I can't seem to find out HOW to remove that background.
Any help is appreciated.

You can find the file I want to adjust here (careful, this is a sloooow site). Maybe you can have a look there first so you'll know what I mean.

TIA!

I'm no expert on Acrobat, but you could try selecting, copying and pasting the text into a word processor program.

really the only way to do it is by using the 'text select' tool (to the right of the magnifying tool) and select the text then print it with another program. 96 pages? that must have been a LONG lecture!

//matt

What you want requires the FULL versio nof Acrobat, not just the reader. Adobe Acrobat is actually a full featured page layout program that has an associated FREE reader to view the docs (MS does this with PowerPoint too.) So, if you want to can spend about $500 and get the FULL version or do the cut and paste thing that was suggested. On the of chance that you happen to have CorelDRAW! 9 or above lying around, it is capable of editing and creating PDF files.

It's 96 pages because it's the slides of one schoolyear worth of lectures for that course. Sorry if I wasn't clear about that.

FWIW, I AM using the full version of Acrobat 5.0, not the reader. But I still can't seem to find how to do this.

Anyone, please?

But I still can't seem to find how to do this

I did myself just what I recomended that you do, and it worked fine. I selected the text on the slide and copy/pasted it to MS Word, and it looked good to me. If you really cant figure out how to do it, I'll do it myself and send you a .doc file.

//matt

Thanks very much for your offer, but I've tried your method and, though it DOES work, it does not copy the added graphics tables (as on page 6, 7 and many more). And I need those too.
I appreciate your effort though.

I can't believe there's nobody here who knows enough of this stupid program to tell me how to perform a simple (or at least I think it should be simple - wouldn't be a problem in powerpoint or word for that matter, but this program is in no way intuitive) operation like removing a background.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

The problem is that it wasn't generated in Acrobat. It was generated using Distiller, probably from Powerpoint, by its look. PDF is more of a distribution format than an editable format. Kinda like MPEG.

You know, I've been reading the help file for two hours now, and I came to the same conclusion.

I've been fiddling around with this distiller, but a first sight I can't seen to find a way to convert everything back to .PPT format.
I'm sure there must be a way.

Anybody got any info on this ?

(I'm telling you, this "little adjustment" has already take WAY more of my time than I bargained for. - I'm this close of printing the damned page as they are.)

(I'm telling you, this "little adjustment" has already take WAY more of my time than I bargained for. - I'm this close of printing the damned page as they are.)

Do it, and make him pay for a new ink cartridge set.

"Fix it in hardware."

Damn Tony, you're good! How did you know I was actually going through all this trouble for somebody else ?

(though the fact that I also take this course is true - I just wouldn't care about that stupid ink cartridge that much)

I'm sure there's no easy way. Powerpoint, I'm sure, has a bunch of internal codes that you never really see in order to keep it all editable and related together. When it's converted to PDF, it throws all that stuff away, only keeping what's needed to actually show the info.

You could ask your professor for the original.

Or remove the blue cartridge and print it in color.

Try this one that I modified.
http://www.robricc.com/Publiekrecht1.pdf

It still has the background, but it will print two pages per sheet effectively saving you half your ink and paper.

I'm sure there's no easy way. Powerpoint, I'm sure, has a bunch of internal codes that you never really see in order to keep it all editable and related together. When it's converted to PDF, it throws all that stuff away, only keeping what's needed to actually show the info.

You're probably right. I couldn't find such a utility on the net anyway. My best bet would be to use photoshop 6.0 and actually start manually removing that background. In really don't know if I want to do this.

You could ask your professor for the original.

Good idea. I might just do that.

And thanks Robricc for that mod. I will use that file instead of the original.

Oh, and in any case somebody was actually wondering : The slides are written in Dutch and concern Belgian public and constitutional law. (I'm sure everybody is thrilled now )

Thanks!

How did you know I was actually going through all this trouble for somebody else ?

I thought you said so at the beginning. Thought you said it was a favor for your professor. Guess I must have inferred it.

Nah, it's actually my girlfriend I'm doing a favour, not the professor.

More difficult to please, but overall more satisfying

If the images do not fall apart in Acrobat then you are screwed. If the file was created totally in Acrobat (or Corel), you would be able to just grab the images and delete them. Sounds like the ppt guess is probably correct and you are s.o.l.