Help! InDesign interactive PDF buttons not working in Safari or on iPad

[NPSgraphics]

I made an infographic in Indesign for our university magazine with a QR code to link to an interactive pdf. Nothing too complicated animation wise, simply buttons that you can click on to view different parts of the graphic. However, the buttons are not working at all in Safari and on the iPhone and iPad, the buttons disapear completley. Please help.

http://bit.ly/yrTN4R?r=qr

Thanks,

Gretchen

[Steve Werner]

Whether buttons work correctly in a PDF file depend entirely on what PDF reader you're using. Here are a couple of important facts:

* While corrected created interactive PDFs will display correctly in the FREE Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat, they probably won't display correctly in Apple's Preview application which is probably what you're viewing in Safari.

* None of the PDF readers currently available on an iPad (e.g., iBooks, GoodReader, etc.) correctly handle interactivity like buttons on an iPad.

[Jeffrey_Smith]

First, that is a very intense infographic and well done. Now the bad news... most Safari (desktop and laptop) users are going to have Preview as their default PDF application. Preview does not honor most interactive elements in a PDF. Likewise, iPhone and iPad use PDF applications that do not honor interactive elements as well.

[will_capellaro]

GoodReader should work... it works for me.

[Steve Werner]

Good suggestion. The iPad PDF readers are getting better, but it's still pretty hit or miss.

[Folobo]

Sorry, this infographic work is built only with indesign button? On my Ipad:

- Goodreader have a bad preview and button do not work.

- Adobe Reader have a good preview but button do not work.

Adobe Reader for IPad don't have the flash player included (yes, the deskop release have it).

And InDesign button should be in flash. Is this correct?

Many thanks.

f

[Folobo]

[priyankas]

Any update in CC version where interactive pdf's can work in ipad and iphone.

i work for client and they want interactive pdf for ipad and iphone.

[BobLevine]

This is NOT and never has been an InDesign issue. Nothing has changed in the last five years in that regard.

It's a platform / reader issue.

Depending upon the interactivity you need/want, fixed layout EPUB may be a far better choice especially if you are targeting only iOS. iBooks handles them wonderfully.

[priyankas]

I will try with EPUB but its not only for IOS; rather for both Android and IOS.

[BobLevine]

Then you have a lot of testing to do.

[Omar218197468aex · Accepted solution]

had the same issue! But I've found a solution, since devices with a touch feature don't have a click be sure to make the buttons function on Indesign set to (on release or tap) rather than (on click) . It did the trick for me and doesn't affect the function on pc or Mac 

[Rishabh_Tiwari]

Hi,

Thanks for reaching out and sharing the solution, I am sure, it will help other community members. In addition to this, you can also refer to this article https://creativepro.com/navigation-button-tricks-for-interactive-pdf-on-an-ipad/

Regards

Rishabh

[8designlife]

Thank you. This is THE answer for setting up interactive rollover buttons, next and previous working icons and more in InDesign so that the exported pdf works in Safari and Preview on a Mac. It took hours of trying different things and testing to finally figure out myself. I wish I had found this answer a week ago.  

[Alena_J]

I had the same issue... hoewever the upvoted solution didn't helped and had the same problem on a on.

What I did is that I selected the box I wanted to be interactive and added the web page as hyperlink and it works pretty good!

[Willi Adelberger]

Interactive PDFs work only in Acrobat Pro on desktops. No other solution.

[Alena_J]

Well for me and the document I created it works well on iPhone (safari)

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Expand Willi's comment to "all features of interactive PDFs can only be assured to work on desktop Acrobat." Browsers have slowly gotten better at PDF, but at the price of streamlining their support to fairly basic flat pages and a few links.

It is a weekly occurence for someone to ask about this — why their elaborate interactive/multimedia PDF doesn't work on mobile OS readers or browsers. Unless they can optimize the document for a specific reader, or require that users open it in desktop Acrobat, there's no reliable solution.

PDF is, unfortunately, not an enforced standard and system or third-party readers are unlikely to be completely compliant.

[Alena_J]

True, I only had like a "cover" page with four very basic links that linked to the full documents in different languages. I needed to give people scanning my QR the possibility to choose the language they want to see the document in.

Even though I viewed some more difficult documents on my phone and all worked well, thats why I was flabbergasted to see that something so "easy" as a link wasnt working on phone. 

Anyway, problem solved, thanks for the thread and found answers 🙂