What Joel says is true, but there can be an issue with the amount of room on a screen. I think some practices that re really "in to" it have two monitors so they can spread things out.
The imported items is the easy part if the item is in a PDF format because what Joel says works since the item is now open in Acrobat and not in AC. However, I am frequently made nuts by trying to write a letter, look at the last note, and the last lab. AC is not especially good about letting you "take the chart apart" within the AC app itself and look at different parts simultaneously.
