Adobe Acrobat includes several tools that you may find useful when you view and manipulate a GeoPDF file or any geospatially-aware PDF file. The tools noted below are those most often used. Refer to the Adobe Help Center for further details on these and other tools.

In this document:

Layers tab

Use the Layers to toggle map layers on and off.

Click the Layers icon to access the Layers tab.

Object Data Tool

Use the Object Data Tool to view attribute data associated with features exported into the file from the authoring software. To access the Object Data Tool, click Tools on the main menu, then Object Data. Click the GeoPDF file on a feature with object data, then view its associated attribute data in the Model Tree tab.

Comment and Markup tools

If you are running Adobe Acrobat version X.x or XI, click the Comments pane to add annotations and markups to the file.

Adobe comments and markups are not exported to the shapefile format, instead, they are exported to and from the PDF in .fdf file format.

Note: Adobe Acrobat Professional, Adobe Acrobat Pro, Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended, Adobe Acrobat X.x or XI, or LiveCycle is required to enable a GeoPDF file or any geospatially-aware PDF file for comments and measuring or analysis in Adobe Reader.

Search/Find tool

The Search/Find tools allow you to find embedded attributes, labeled features or other text in the file.

Type the search value in the Find text box, then press Enter.

Select and Zoom tools

If you are running Adobe Acrobat version X.x or XI, the select and zoom options on the View menu provide a variety of methods for zooming in and out on the file.

Right-clicking the file while in zoom mode displays a shortcut menu with additional zoom options such as zooming to the actual size, zooming to fit the page, zooming to fit the width, and more.