Capture ANGEL Course for Off-line Presentation

Courtesy of Marian M. Reiter, Graphic Artist, MSU Extension 4-H Youth Development

Using the full version of Adobe Acrobat (not the free Acrobat Reader), you can capture pages and features within an ANGEL course as a pdf file in order to provide a virtual classroom demo in meeting locations where you don't have Internet access. Here's how to do it:

1. Direct Acrobat to open the ANGEL log-on page using the "File/Open Web Page" option.
2. Log on as you normally would using your MSU Net ID and password. Your "My Page" will display in Acrobat with all the links fully functional.
3. As you click on each ANGEL tab and link you wish to capture, that page will be added to your Acrobat document. You can also click on links to documents that are not on the ANGEL server if you would like to include them as well. Acrobat provides the option of letting you choose to make all links relative to the Acrobat document. (So they will pull up the Acrobat page instead of attempting to go to the version on the server.)
4. Use various Acrobat features to enhance your pdf presentation file:

Some types of documents stored in ANGEL may not display properly in an Acrobat capture (for example, PowerPoints). If you run into a page like this, open it using the original application software and convert it to a .pdf file. "Insert" it into your ANGEL demo pdf document in the location desired. Along with inserting, you also have the ability to re-sequence or delete pages in an Acrobat document.

If your font displays differently than you expected, select the "View/Use Local Fonts" option in Acrobat.

If you wish to demonstrate the use of Discussion Forums or Chat Rooms or other ANGEL areas that show names, you will need to maintain student confidentiality. To do this with Acrobat, simply capture the forum or chat page as a PDF, then use "Tools/TouchUp Text" tool to edit information.

For navigating through your presentation, you can create "Bookmarks" (to the left of the document). You can also use the Acrobat feature of creating custom close-up views of sections of pages and include these in your bookmarks.

To point out features on your ANGEL pages or embed notes, you can use Acrobat's drawing and highlighting tools such as pencil, circle, square, highlighter and annotate.

5. Once you've captured the pages you wish to demonstrate, copy them to a disk. Acrobat Reader can then be used to display them while you are off-line.