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Interactive Multimedia PDF or ePUB?

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
January 13, 2025
5 replies
2267 views

Is it possible to create a downloadable, interactive multimedia PDF?

What's the best way to include features such as GIFs and audio?

Plus, I would like the user to answer questions by inputting text into multiple (9) chapter pages, then for all of those answers to be automatically populated into a 2-page PDF form in the conclusion.

I would like users to be able to use the free version of Acrobat to edit the PDF.

Is it better to use HTML5 export with InDesign 2025 or something like In5? https://ajarproductions.com/pages/products/in5/

Thanks

EPUB

Correct answer James Gifford—NitroPress

@James Gifford—NitroPress wrote:

As with EPUB, we need a new generation of PDF, one that is adequately controlled, licensed/approved and rated right from the beginning, without letting each shop and developer and doc designer hack around with "improvements" and "better ideas."

That's never going to happen, because it's up to each individual developer how much functionality they want to include in their app; not something anyone can control. Unless Adobe were to make a new, closed standard, that only they can make readers for. (Reminds me of the old Microsoft Silverlight framework, which was discontinued.)

It's quite simple: if their app doesn't pass a validation/regression testing suite, they can't call it "EPUB4" or "XPDF" or whatever. That point should have never been conceded for either existing standard.

Anyone is free to create a crappy, idiosyncratic, noncompliant reader that —

is free.
is cheaper.
is "faster."
has a "smaller footprint."
isn't from Adobe, those b*stards.
has a super-pretty interface.
runs on every Chinese smartphone.
is branded as "PDF/EPUB/WhatEver" compliant, really!
easily embeds on the social media platform of your choice.

...and so forth. And what we have is a market of "PDF readers" and "EPUB viewers" that are all of the above, without having to put a single qualifiying note or asterisk or omit the licensed name of the standard.

And so we have a market and universe of craptastic, half-functional doc readers that simply frustrate most of the user base, who blame "PDF" and "Adobe" when neither is actually at any fault.

But, by all means, developer freedom. Yay.

TᴀW

Legend

I don't know why people think that PDF doesn't support interactivity.

Download this PDF, open it in the free desktop Adobe Reader, and tell me PDF doesn't support interactivity. (The first extra ball is at 60 points).

https://www.id-extras.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Breakout.pdf

James Gifford—NitroPress

Legend

I don't know why people think that PDF doesn't support interactivity.

Because it's erratic and lousy at all advanced features, especially interactive ones, animations, forms, etc. UNLESS you —

open it in the free desktop Adobe Reader

...and not one real world user in ten gets that, will comply, or has any idea that "PDF isn't always PDF"; also, nearly all creators of these forms and documents and presentations need/want them to work out there on any mobile device's email client or browser, and don't find out this limitation until their client has sent 10,000 links to their premium user list without any caveats or explanation.

That's probably why.

And why so many general users out there think PDF is a crap format that always breaks.

TᴀW

Legend

Try driving an exclusive racing car on a regular road. It will destroy the car. A well-crafted interactive PDF is the car, and a top PDF reader is required not to destroy it.

There are plenty of situations where the PDF creator would be able to dictate to users what app to use. A course instructor, or in a business/professional environment, and even to the general public if the material is not readily available elsewhere.

One in ten users in the real world is still many hundreds of million of people.

James Gifford—NitroPress

Legend

There's an old, old joke about a guy who gets in a New York cab and tells the driver his destination. The cabbie turns around and says, "Buddy, you can't get there from here!"

And that's kind of multimedia/interactive document development in a parable. It's frustrating, because interactive stuff is everywhere, but the tools to create and support it are not nearly as plentiful as they seem.

To have anything but the simplest "multimedia" and "interactivity," you have to have one of two things:

A fully developed app that runs on the desired platform and supports all of its own features;
Or a "document" that is correctly built and runs on a support platform that runs on the (OS) platform desired.

There is no third option. The frustrating part comes in when tools like InDesign include all kinds of interactive and media features that seem to offer exactly that kind of development... but there turn out to be so many limitations that getting from "here" to "there" is very difficult or impossible.

So if you don't want to go sideways into Android/iOS app development, you only have three "document based" options —

PDF does not support media well, especially since the discontinuance of Flash support. It doesn't support interactivity very well, either. And it supports what it does of both ONLY when viewed on a current copy of Adobe Acrobat on a desktop OS. Forget about mobile or online function; the mobiie readers, especially those from secondary suppliers and even more especially those built into mobile devices and browsers, simply don't support the more advanced features of PDF.
EPUB is in about the same boat, with standards support for media and interactivity, but successfully building those elements into a document is difficult and tricky. And then, you have to view the doc in a fully compliant reader, and there are dozens in use, most of which have one fault, limitation or quirk or another (sometimes several).
Something based on HTML/CSS/Javascript. One solution is InDesign to Publish Online, which works fairly well but limits you to a specific URL/address hosted by the Adobe system. Another (maybe) is the new subset of that, export to HTML5, which is sort of the document core of Publish Online but without the advanced/host support. The third is the very well-regarded In5 plugin and support system, which does an excellent job of building web-compatible versions of ID documents, but is fairly expensive unless you plan to do a lot of such export work.

So... the real answer is that your choice is to build an app, or build a HTML document using appropriate tools and skills. ID can be a shortcut to either, but it's not the tool to learn and master for that end result.

Frustrating to see these features all around, and the promise of being able to do it, and find that it's really a lot tougher than it seems.

(Oh, and thanks for picking up my book on EPUB/Kindle; I hope you find it useful and informative. But the only interactivity I touch on is hyperlinks.)

I

IDLDAuthor

Participating Frequently

That's helpful. I want to stick with Adobe but I'll venture beyond if necessary. Pardon my naivety, but what about integrating or using standalone applications to achieve my results, especially with users inputting the text and creating a downloadable and editable 2-Page PDF?
Other Options Below?

Netlify Forms? https://www.netlify.com/platform/core/forms/
Publuu - Interactive PDF https://publuu.com/knowledge-base/interactive-pdf-examples/
FlipHTML5: Online Interactive PDF Creator: https://fliphtml5.com/learning-center/interactive-pdf/

James Gifford—NitroPress

Legend

Take my summary as that there are no generic solutions among the common design tools. There are always add-ons, plugins, support sites and the like.

But many need some kind of live support to work (that is, readers must use a specific viewer, or have access to a particular net resource, or the like) and/or can get quite costly, especially on a small production basis. (That is, $100 a month isn't much if you churn out the content... but it's an awful lot for a few docs per month.)

The goal of a standalone document that can be read easily by almost any user and incorporate these advanced features is... pretty close to being a unicorn. And it's considerably more difficult to achieve using standard doc/design tools (as opposed to an app or the extended feature/support add-ons).

ETA: Don't overlook that "staying within Adobe" means only three narrow choices: Publish Online, using In5, or export to PDF. The last absolutely requires that users use the desktop version of Acrobat, a difficult thing to enforce or even communicate to a general user base that has no idea "PDF isn't always PDF" and will complain bitterly when their phone browser doesn't display the doc correctly.

I

IDLDAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thanks for the feedback. As a result, I'm going to forget about the multimedia features and focus on functionality. I'm working on the Articulate Storyline version (similar to Adobe Captivate) now and I prefer not to build an app too because of time and cost.

Can the combo of InDesign and In5 do this? Other options?

The user answers questions by inputting text into multiple (9) chapter pages, then all of those answers will be automatically populated into a 2-page PDF form in the conclusion.
Any user or any device can use the free version of Acrobat to edit the PDF.
I recently bought this for tips: InDesign to Kindle: A Professional Guide