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Inspiring
January 21, 2020
Answered

Rollover Buttons Not Working in PDF

  • January 21, 2020
  • 7 replies
  • 9760 views

Hello,

I'm working with buttons in InDesign. Using Buttons and Forms, I've created a button which on the rollover state, shows a box. When you roll off of the button, the box disappears. In the Interactivity Preview box, the button functions properly. When I export the interactive PDF, nothing happens when I roll over the button in Acrobat. I have the newest versions of all apps. Any suggestions as to why this is not working? If I change the function of the button to open the box on the click, it works fine. Just the rollover function is giving me a problem. Could it be a pdf setting? Thank you.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer BobLevine

The only preview in InDesign is for EPUB, not PDF. That said, rollover effects are wonky at best and will not work on mobile devices or many third party PDF readers. 

 

That said, how exactly did you set up the rollover.

7 replies

JR Boulay
Community Expert
February 28, 2022

The INDD attachment:

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe
New Participant
February 28, 2022

really greate solutions and community. thank you all for the discussion.

JR Boulay
Community Expert
February 28, 2022

Creating a 3-state PDF button with InDesign is a breeze, but you must not use MSO tools, you must use the "Button and forms" tools.

See attachments.

 

 

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe
BobLevine
Community Expert
February 28, 2022

It's worth mentioning that this will work with Acrobat or Reader on a desktop but it won't work at all on a mobile device nor will it work on many third party PDF readers. It's also been known to be quite wonky even in Acrobat.

JR Boulay
Community Expert
February 28, 2022

nor will it work on many third party PDF readers.

It will work with any PDF Reader that support AcroForms specifications.

 

It's also been known to be quite wonky even in Acrobat.

This is not true.

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe
BEE7333
Participating Frequently
February 28, 2022

Good day, I have had various issues with interactivity with InDesign. I use this a lot for interactive brochures and maps, etc.

PDF is not the best option. But I finally figured out how to with InDesign and onling Indesign publsihing -  works perfectly but you have to use MOS. Multi State Objects:

See youtube for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1iEtcx3qbw

New Participant
January 10, 2022

Make sure that in the button palette there's an eye icon next to the rollover state under "Appearance". If there's no icon, the rollover won't show up once it's saved to pdf.

Derek Cross
Community Expert
January 10, 2022

Roll-over buttons won't work on tablets and smart phones, they don't have rollover capability – only click

Diane Burns
Inspiring
February 25, 2022

It's called, ADOBE Acrobat and it's in the copyright information and part of the ADOBE Creative Cloud. It doesn't matter, it's a poor excuse and the alternatives are deplorable. 


Did you try Publish Online? It supports all of InDesign's interactive features, including rollovers, etc. Though since rollovers don't work on tablets, etc, that may not be your best choice. Anyway, please check out some of the great example documents shown here, which will give you an idea of the possibilities: http://bit.ly/PubOnCollection

Participating Frequently
June 26, 2020

I use File > Export > and select PDF (interactive) as the file type. The PDF presets don't work for interactive PDFs. 

BobLevine
BobLevineCorrect answer
Community Expert
January 21, 2020

The only preview in InDesign is for EPUB, not PDF. That said, rollover effects are wonky at best and will not work on mobile devices or many third party PDF readers. 

 

That said, how exactly did you set up the rollover.

Inspiring
January 21, 2020

Using Buttons and Forms, I created two buttons. I set one to turn on the other "On Rollover" and to turn it off "On Roll Off".  Will this setting only work for an eBook and not a pdf?

 

BobLevine
Community Expert
January 21, 2020

It should work, but again, it's wonky at best and I would never personally use it. I couldn't possibly tell you what's wrong. Could be Acrobat, could be something specific to your computer. Have you tried it on a different machine?

Derek Cross
Community Expert
January 21, 2020

Multi-state buttons don't work in Interactive PDFs, use simple hypelinks (you can use words, images and button shapes) , they can be internal links to other pages and external to URLs.

Inspiring
January 21, 2020

Thank you for your response. So are you saying that rollovers (images appearing on hover) are not supported in interactive pdfs? Just not sure exactly what multi-state refers to.