Animated document: Which Adobe product to use?

[ScottDickson]

I want to create a text-heavy document that would contain lots of animated GIFs as well as audio and video clips. (think Harry Potter newspaper) I would like to be able to share this so that a person could download it and view it offline, like a PDF file. (I'm not concerned about file size.)

I HAD hoped that Acrobat Pro could do this (given how long it's been around), but this doesn't seem the right solution. (When the exported PDF files are viewed, the h.264 video clips repeatedly show up as still images, unable to play. Same thing with GIFs)

[When I try calling sales, it's a nightmare. I keep getting transferred from one department to another, and no one seems to listen to what I'm asking for, or the troubles I've encountered. Pre-sales wants to transfer me to tech support, and tech support insists on knowing which product I'm calling about, and it's never the right one....]

[try67]

You can use a PDF file, just convert your videos to a format it recognizes, like MP4.

[ScottDickson]

I have tried using MP4 (that's the format that the h.264 file is in).

That does NOT work. 

[try67]

If you don't elaborate we can't help you.

[ScottDickson]

I've used a variety of encoders to convert video files into MP4 (using h.264 codec, fyi), and then I've imported those files into a PDF file that I'm creating. I save the PDF. The PDF file size, afterwards, is large, indicating that the MP4 is succesfully embedded into the file.

When I try looking at this file on another device (i.e. another workstation or a mobile device, using whatever its default PDF viewer is), what appears invariably is a still image, incapable of being played back. 

I've tried creating PDFs in this manner using a number of word processing programs (Word, Pages) and also, of course, Acrobat Pro. 

I had hoped that perhaps Adobe had some other solution.

Apparently, there's a limitiation that exists with PDFs. There's no practical way to accomplish what I'm trying to do, as I have no control over the playback/viewing software.

[Nancy OShea]

Please don't expect Adobe Customer Support to teach you how to use the software.  That's not their job.  They mainly assist with account, billing and subscription activation issues.

To learn, use the online Help, User Guides and Tutorials.

https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/adding-multimedia-pdfs.html

[ScottDickson]

Thank you Nancy.

What I posted was a question for a pre-sales staff member to addreess, not Adobe Customer Support.

I want to ask Adobe, "Do you make a product which does this?" (It seems that I'm not the only one who has tried figuring out a way to do this, and to no avail.) So far I've spent a couple of hours on this.

[Test Screen Name · Accepted solution]

PDF has many limitations as a multimedia carrier. Hard to recommend it. But offline it’s the Only game in town. Your end users need to be told and trained to use ONLY Acrobat Reader not another app or a browser. Please describe the essentials of how you make the PDF that fails In Reader. (Using MP4, not animated GIF). What app to make the text heavy base? What app to convert to PDF? And what app to add the video? Please give exact Acrobat version. 

[ScottDickson]

Thank you so much, Test_Screen_Name, for trying to be helpful and for providing me with these extra insights.

I only have control over the way I create the document; not the way it is viewed. So... if I have to specify that the end user open this document specfically in Acrobat Reader, then this objective of mine isn't practical.

Thank you!

[Nancy OShea]

The most practical approach for this is something called an SPA or single page web application.  All modern browser's natively support MP4 video, MP3 audio, animated GIF and custom web fonts. 

Best of all, there's no need for special viewers or stand alone apps.  All users with a modern web browser are good to go.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-page_application

This project will be a slam dunk for anyone who can work with HTML5 and JavaScript in a code editor like Dreamweaver.

https://www.dmxzone.com/go/32379/making-a-single-page-app-without-a-framework/

https://medium.com/wappler-io/enhance-the-user-experience-with-single-page-apps-43a8228c4646