Smokeball can be extremely helpful when working with PDFs. You can use Adobe Acrobat to track time and changes associated with normal Smokeball file management.
If there is a publicly available Court and Authority PDF form you are looking to automate, first search in the Precedent Library. It is also possible to automate PDFs using Smokeball's PDF Automation.
This article focuses on how to work with PDFs in Adobe so you can track time and changes.
The following steps can only be applied to paid Adobe Acrobat plans. If you are using Adobe Acrobat Reader (the free PDF viewer), the PDF won't save back to Smokeball. In this situation, use the Print to Smokeball PDF feature instead.
- Open a PDF that has been imported into Smokeball in Adobe Acrobat.
- In Adobe settings, ensure that Show online storage when saving files under preferences is not ticked.
- Save the PDF. You should see a dialogue box to save the document to a temp file location. This ensures the edits or changes are saved to Smokeball.
- Every time you want to save a version, always select "Yes" when prompted to replace the existing file.
- Every time you want to save a version, always select "Yes" when prompted to replace the existing file.
- Close the PDF. The PDF will be stored in your Smokeball matter.
Smokeball will track the file history, and activity will be recorded in Smokeball every time you work on the PDF.
To view file history:
- Right-click on the PDF and select Properties.
- Select the History tab.