Skip to main content
Participant
July 4, 2019
Question

Plug-in for creating interactive document with indesign

  • July 4, 2019
  • 6 replies
  • 1581 views

Does anyone know good plug-ins that I can use within InDesign to create an interactive PDF

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    6 replies

    Derek Cross
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    July 6, 2019

    The PDF 2.00 specification is now available and it allows for the inclusion of multi-media, such as video, and controllable reflowable text. But we need for the vendors to implement it. So if everyone on this forum emails Adobe with the request, and gets their designer friends to do so also, we might get some action.

    So it’s over to you InDesign users, we could theoretically have the facility within months!

    Email Adobe: https://indesign.uservoice.com

    (I'm going to repost this in it's own thread so it doesn't get lost)

    Derek Cross
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    July 6, 2019

    In addition to Steve’s excellent answers, the only interactivity you can rely on in the current versions is hyperlinks.

    Steve Werner
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    July 5, 2019

    As an alternative I suggest you look into the in5 plug-in that gives you access to a lot of interactivity using HTML instead of PDF:

    In5 - Ajar Productionshttps://ajarproductions.com/pages/products/in5/?ref=footer

    Steve Werner
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    July 5, 2019

    A 3rd party plug-in doesn't get around the essential problem of using interactive PDFs today. A decade ago, it was easier to get people to use Adobe Reader (or Acrobat). Flash was still automatically installed, and a lot of PDF interactivity (for example, video and audio) relied on that.

    Now, Flash is essentially dead and most people don't have access to it. Users expect to view their PDFs in their web browsers or in another reader like Preview on the Mac that's already on their computer. These PDF readers don't support most PDF interactivity except simple hyperlinks.

    The problem isn't finding a third party plug-in to create it. You can create lots of interactivity in InDesign already. It's that if you create and send it to your users they won't be able to use it.

    Srishti Bali
    Legend
    July 5, 2019

    Hi there,

    Thanks for reaching out. As Andi said above, we would need a few more details of your workflow to suggest plugins.

    As per your query, you are looking for a plugin to export interactive PDFs from InDesign, however, InDesign can do it without any plugin. You can simply Go to File > Export > and Choose Adobe PDF interactive.

    If you are trying to do it for multiple files, you can do that through scripting.

    Regards,

    Srishti

    Legend
    July 4, 2019

    What aspects of interactivity do you want exactly? For instance there is a big difference in the answer if you want form fields, or a video, or page turns.