Femtosecond lasers are versatile tools to process transparent materials. This optical property poses an issue for surface modification. In this case, laser radiation would not be absorbed at the surface unless the beam is just focused there. Otherwise, absorption would take place in the bulk leaving the surface unperturbed. Therefore, strategies to position the material surface at the laser beam waist with high accuracy are essential. We investigated and compared two options to achieve this aim: the use of reflectance data and transmittance measurements across the sample, both obtained during z-scans with pulses from a 1027 nm wavelength laser and 450 fs pulse duration. As the material enters the beam waist region, a reflectance peak is detected while a transmittance drop is observed. With these observations, it is possible to control the position of the sample surface with respect to the beam waist with high resolution and attain pure surface modification. In the case of polymethyl-methacrylate (PMMA), this resolution is 0.6 mu m. The results prove that these methods are feasible for submicrometric processing of the surface. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.