How to Create Interactive PDFs in InDesign with Hyperlinks and Embedded Videos

[brook_4359]

Hi everyone! I'm working on creating resources for my coding website  and want to make them more interactive. Is it possible to add elements like hyperlinks or embedded videos in InDesign that will still function when exported as PDFs? Any tips on making interactive PDFs that are compatible with most devices would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

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[Conrad_C · Accepted solution]

The question will be answered better in the InDesign community (this post was made in the Photoshop community), but the answer is “not really.” It might appear possible from the InDesign toolset, but one of the biggest reasons interactive multimedia PDF can’t be relied on any more is the wide range of PDF viewers out there. Someone might view a PDF in Acrobat, an OS bundled PDF viewer like Apple Preview, an embedded viewer like in different web browsers, and especially PDF viewers on mobile devices…and the problem is that they don’t all support the same version and feature set of the PDF standard. This is totally out of the control of Adobe, it depends on the decisions made by device makers and even individual users who might change their default PDF viewer or web browser.

So in theory you can make an interactive PDF, but in practice, when people open it, there is no telling what will happen. Depending on the PDF viewer, some will see no video and maybe some interactivity. Some might play video but the interactivity won’t work. Some will not be able to get the interactivity or the video to work.

If you ask this in the InDesign forum, the answer you are probably going to get is that if you require interactive multimedia from InDesign that works consistently across devices and platforms, design for export as HTML5. A popular tool for that is In5.

InDesign 2025, released this month, just added HTML5 export, but I don’t think it’s as robust as In5. But this is not really my area, so I haven’t tried either method.

[brook_4359]

Thank you mate. it is really very helpful.

[Chuck Uebele]

Moved to The Indesign forum, from the Photoshop forum.

[BobLevine]

Beyond simple interactivity such as hyperlinks, don't bother. Multimedia is especially tricky. Not even close to being worth the effort. This has been discussed over and over again. Search the community for similar questions and you'll find similar answers. Your need for most devices is, IMO, a complete dealbreaker. Third party PDF readers and mobile devices will never give you what you're looking for.