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Indesign Table Trouble

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
February 7, 2025
4 replies
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I am creating a multi-page table that has a lot of information in some of it's cells. If I expanded the rows to show everything the table would be very long. Not what I want. I would like a way to save it in a virtual format that when you clicked on the cell, the hidden text would show up in a popup. #1) Is that possible, and how? #2) If not, are there any applications I can export the indesign table to that I can do this?

How to

Correct answer Eugene Tyson

I just had a thought--which I'm prone to do once in a while...

What about using comments in Acrobat? They can be password protected from editing and will work on all devices.

@Dave Creamer of IDEAS wrote:

I just had a thought--which I'm prone to do once in a while...

What about using comments in Acrobat? They can be password protected from editing and will work on all devices.

Great idea! Which reminds me of converting InDesign Notes to Comments via InCopy https://creativepro.com/add-pdf-comments-indesign/

S

SnakePitAuthor

Known Participant

Thank you everyone who is trying to help. This just isn't working, and it's time to abandon this idea. I actually got it to work theoretically by "pasting into" the cell and then applying the scrolling feature of the in5 plugin, but when I went to export the file via HTML5 with in5 it crashed indesign evey time. I googled why this might happen and one of the reasons was not enough computing power. This could defintely be the case since my laptop is pretty old. This shouldn't be this hard. There has to be another way.

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

@SnakePit

How much RAM do you have?

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

I think we can call it "case closed" 😉

Those red objects - transparency set to multiply - those are Rectangles created by the Task below:

Values in "{}" - those are names of the columns - so objects, in this case Rectangles - are created dynamically, based on the values read / set / calculated at some point in time - in this case - during reading info about the Table.

Cells has been selected at random.

Zoom on one of the Rectangles - it is set to multiply, so greeen line - is the edge of the Rectangle:

Thickness of the edge on the left - and top - isn't included in the calculations yet - so there is a 0.5pt difference.

And after selecting ALL newly created Rectangles and moving them 0.5pt right and down:

For better visualisation - this one rectangle has been moved to a top most layer and fillhas been removed and transparency set to normal.

Of course - everything still available in the free version - but will require extra clicking 😉

Adding buttons will be piece of cake.

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

@SnakePit

Are you talking about when working in InDesign - or in exported PDF?

If latter - then here is a recent thread:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/interactive-button-to-show-and-hide-layers/m-p/15134733#M609450

If what you have is "organised" - or you want to just show overset contents of the Cells - "conversion" can be easily automated.

S

SnakePitAuthor

Known Participant

I attached a screen shot of the table I am creating in indesign. You can see all the red dots with overset text in them. There is a lot of information in them. I really want to figure out a way to have the info show up in a popup when clicked or rolled over. There MUST be a way, if not in indesign, in another program. This seems like it has to be something that people often encounter. I can't believe there isn't an easy way to do this. I was hoping if I saved as an interactive PDF that would work, but it doesn't. A scrollable box would also be an acceptable outcome.

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

There is no built-in way to do this in InDesign - only by a script.

Are you on Windows?

E

Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

Ulitmately it's going to depend on your end format and reasoning for this and how it's going to be distributed.

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You have Rollover states for an object - say like a (Click Here For More Info) or an 'i' in a circle

Then when someone is using the PDF or online file it would pop up when they roll over it.

https://www.montilladesign.com/post/learn-how-to-create-interactive-rollover-buttons-in-adobe-indesign

However, interactive things like rollovers in PDFs might not work in all readers, like FoxIt, Chrome, Samsung PDF, Apple Preview, and other 3rd party pdf readers may be really bad at displaying this information or simply ignore it.

If you're publishing online it should be ok.

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Another option maybe would be to create End Notes - so you'd insert the text in the table and the person then clicks and endnote - like a footnote - except it's at the end of the document - and it would go to the end of the document where it shows the information.

You could then somehow get back to the page you were on maybe with a hyperlink back to the page that has the endnote.

https://helpx.adobe.com/ie/indesign/using/endnotes.html

At least with an endnote if someone searched the PDF the information is there. If it's hidden in a pop up it might not be searchable.