How to upload documents

Introduction

The Children's Forum Portal (CFP) requires documents to be uploaded in Adobe PDF format. If you are scanning paper documents, you will need to "save as .PDF" or convert the scanned file format to PDF, using Acrobat Pro, or a free PDF converter like PrimoPDF or CutePDF.

If you do not have the suggested PDF converting tool, please visit Microsoft's Office software website for further information.

To upload a document, please follow the steps below:

  • Click on the Browse button, select the file you are uploading, and click on Open. The file name should appear in the textbox to the left of the Browse button.
  • Click on the Upload button to start the upload process

Note: all uploaded documents have a 10MB limit (all pages combined).

It is a requirement that users convert Word and any scanned documents into the PDF format to upload these documents properly.

To do so please follow these instructions:

  1. With the document open, go to File -> Print
  2. Under the list of printers you have installed, select Acrobat Distiller or Adobe PDF, or another PDF converting tool like PrimoPDF or CutePDF.
  3. Then press OK.
  4. You should then be prompted to save the file onto your computer.  This will be the name of the converted PDF.

If you do not have the suggested PDF converting tool, please visit Microsoft's Office software website for further information.

If you need to convert a paper document, or several paper documents, into an electronic file you will need a scanner. When you scan your paper documents we suggest saving the resulting scan document in PDF format, if possible (usually there will be a drop down to choose the file format). This will save you the step of converting the document to PDF.

The file size of the combined scans of all pages CANNOT exceed 10MB per file. Once you have scanned your page or pages you can then use the upload feature.

It is important to plan your scanning so that you will be saving to a single document, even if you have several pages to scan for a participant. This means that you must find the "continue adding pages" feature of your scanning software, or have PDF editing software that can combine PDF files later.

If you find that your scanned files are too large (each page should be less than 100kb) refer to your scanner's software documentation for ways to reduce file size. (Remember that the resulting file MUST still be legible).

You may try the following:

  • Lower the resolution when initially scanning your document. The lower the resolution, the smaller the file size.
  • Remove unnecessary colors to reduce file size.  Whenever possible, save the picture in black and white.
  • Reduce the height and the width of the image.

Many image editing programs can further reduce the overall size of your images. Please refer to the documentation that came with your software for detailed instructions.