Collaborate on PDFs and Connect Your Team.

Not just buzzwords, collaboration and connection are the heart of what it takes for two or more people to work together on tasks and achieve common goals. To collaborate and connect your all-important teamwork on documents, you need file systems and document formats that are easy for people to work on anywhere, at any time. That’s where the Portable Document Format (PDF) comes in.

Photo of a team working in an office sitting at desks and around a table. Laid out on the table are multiple documents covered in coloured post-it notes.

Now, more than ever, people are collaborating and connecting on both work and social topics from different devices and in various locations – remote working, hybrid working, contracting, freelancing – the way we work and interact has changed whether you are a big business or a budding entrepreneur.

What you’ll learn.

What you can do in PDFs.
The benefits of team collaboration.
Ways to access PDFs for collaborative work.
PDF features to organize your teamwork.

What are PDFs?

The Portable Document Format (PDF) was first developed by Adobe in the early 1990s to make file sharing easy between different computer systems and devices.

PDF documents can now be dynamic and interactive documents that multiple people can edit, comment on, sign, and agree to. They can be encrypted and password to protect sensitive and confidential information.

Pages of documents flying through the air on a black background.

PDFs can be converted to and from other document formats, such as PowerPoint, Word, Excel and JPG. They can be merged and compressed to save storage space and speed up email attachment sending, upload, and download times.

The benefits of team collaboration.

As the saying goes, “teamwork makes the dream work”. How a team collaborates can make or break a project. Successful team collaboration has significant benefits for everyone involved — for example, quality products or services, employer/employee relationships and job satisfaction, and, of course, your customer/client approval,

Working collectively helps you achieve better outcomes than working alone. This leads to improved efficiency, innovation, and creativity. When working in a team, communication is key. When working on shared documents, easy access, tracking and control features help make it smooth and seamless.

Ways to access PDFs for collaborative work.

Collaborating on shared projects and documents with teams can be a daunting task and potentially end up in version control chaos. It doesn’t need to be!

PDF is a pretty powerful tool to use in collaborative work to keep everything cool, calm, collected and organized. Plus, there are a couple of ways you can work with collaborative PDF editing.

Three people sitting at a table with laptops and smartphones. overlaid with conceptual images of networking remotely with other people.

Collaborate on PDFs in the cloud.

Collaborating in the cloud is a great way to work in real-time on the same document. No more multiple versions to manage and/or need to merge PDFs.

There are plenty of cloud-based platforms to choose from. With Document Cloud services you can access and use various levels of solutions from Acrobat, Acrobat Sign to free Acrobat Reader.

Cloud services help with distributing files to team members, keeping track of engagement, and document modification.

Use Acrobat to share your PDF with others. Just open your app, select “share with others”, add your recipients’ email addresses, and select “allow comments”. You can set a deadline, if you want, track the file, and receive notifications of comments in real-time. Your team will be able to view the PDF and add comments from any web browser.

PDF features to organize your teamwork.

Take the time to explore the features available in PDFs that will work for you. It’ll save you time and money in the long run if you know the power of the product you’re using and share what you can do with your team. Create a PDF policy or protocol document to guide your collaborators on how to contribute to your documents, if you need to.

Just a few PDF features that help with team collaboration include:

Writing notes and comments to guide other contributors' edits to PDFs.
Using digital signatures to confirm content agreement.
Creating password protection for any sections you don’t want others to edit.
Setting deadlines and notifications in-app or in the cloud.
Utilising conversion tools to convert Word, Excel, PowerPoint and jpg files to PDF.

Group of people's arms in a circle working on laptops, tables and smart phones. At the center is a conceptual diagram of being connected via the cloud.

PDF collaboration is clever.

Collaboration really is key and crucial in today’s work environment. With remote work, hybrid working, and outsourcing and contracting becoming the norm, finding effective ways to work on your projects is essential. Collaborating within PDFs ensures that you are working with high-quality, professional-looking documents that are secure, and easy to share and edit with others.

Frequently asked questions

How can I make sure my team is all using the same version of a PDF document?

There are a couple of ways to ensure that your team is using the same version of a PDF document. Make use of the in-app file-sharing features within Acrobat, so that your contributors access the same version online. Use cloud document systems so you can have everyone working on the same document.

If you do end up with or currently have, different versions there are a couple of ways to get everyone back on the same page. You can easily compare PDF files within Acrobat to review versions and then create a final PDF.

How can I ensure the security and privacy of the PDF document while collaborating with my team?

To ensure the security and privacy of your PDF document while collaborating with your team, get to know the security features within the app and your overall IT or computer system. There are different layers to choose from. Within PDFs, you can select features such as password protection and encryption, permissions settings, and enhanced security settings. You can also add elements such as watermarks, headers and footers to highlight that a document is, for example, draft, confidential, copyright, or for internal use only. Use digital IDs and certificate security to further encrypt PDF content and check electronic signatures. Consider digital rights management (DRM) services to further control access and usage of your PDFs.

Can teams work on PDFs in Microsoft Teams?

Yes, your teams can work in PDFs in Microsoft Teams. In the true spirit of collaboration, Adobe Acrobat for Microsoft Teams was developed so people could work directly in PDFs without having to leave the MS Teams environment. Simply search within Microsoft Teams Apps for Adobe, install, and you’re good to go.

style

reading width