Button Not Working on iPad in Interactive PDF Exported from InDesign

[Lazohazo]

Hello, I made a button in InDesign and exported it as an interactive PDF. When I opened it on my computer, it worked, but it did not work on my iPad or Goodnotes.

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[Eugene Tyson]

Interactive PDFs generated by InDesign are best viewed using Adobe Acrobat.

Some 3rd party readers don't hold all the modules for interactive pdfs - which are essentially dumbed down PDF readers offered by Apple, Goodnotes, Samsung, Chrome, Foxit Reader etc. don't all comply with all features of a PDF. 

If you want an interactive PDF to work on all devices you may need to reduce your interactive or change methods etc. - or insist everyone have Acrobat to view the PDF.

An alterative is to Publish Online which might work for you either.

[Derek Cross]

Multi-state buttons don't work on tablets and smart phones and in any case interctivity on PDFs is limited.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

What did you program the button to do?

[Lazohazo]

I made the button a check box that was it.

[Pariah Burke]

Did you make a button or a form field? Checkbox controls are typically form fields. Untimately, the answer might be the same: many PDF reading applications don't support PDF forms.

[Pariah Burke]

As everyone else noted, interactive PDF is no longer the format to pursue if you want interactive publications from InDesign usable on many platforms. I would suggest switching to Fixed-Layout EPUB output. It has almost all the benefits of the old interactive PDFs plus pretty consistent features across devices. In InDesign go to File > Export and set the output format to EPUB (Fixed Layout).

The only real drawback is that neither Windows nor Android have built-in FXL (Fixed-Layout) viewers; they require the user to install an FXL-capable ebook app like Kindle.