Want animations not to play again if user goes back to page

[aknight47]

I have a two page digitally published PDF with some simple animations. Once the user views page one and page two as intended, is there a way for the animations not to play if the user goes back to page one?

[Derek Cross]

You can't have animations in PDFs.

[BobLevine]

As Derek point out, this is certainly is not a PDF and the answer is no, you cannot control that natively.

[Diane Burns · Accepted solution]

To add to others' reply, you can't have animations in a PDF. Are you using Publish Online? If not, you should check it out! Here are some examples of some great interactive projects done with InDesign and Publish Online: http://bit.ly/PubOnCollection.

Assuming you are using Publish Online or other format that supports animations (such as ePub, for example), I don't know of any way to avoid the animation on Page 1 from playing again if the user goes back to that page. Animations are generally triggered by "On Page Load," or by a button or trigger of some kind. I can't off the top of my head think of any way to achieve what you are looking for, unless you can let the user trigger the animation with a button of some kind. Perhaps others will have an idea.

[aknight47 · Accepted solution]

Apologies, my question was very poorly written. Yes, I'm just publishing it online.
Essentially we animated an existing sales sheet and published it online to add a little character.
Nothing over the top, just some text boxes fading in and images coming in from the sides.

It's multiple pages, and the client was hoping that if they went "back" to a previous page it would be static. But I think my question has been answered, and that isn't possible without adding a button to trigger the animation.

So thanks all for the replies.

[rayek.elfin]

Unfortunately a page in an epub or published online is basically a web page, and these are "stateless": meaning that the state of a previously visited page cannot be retained or recalled.

So a page that starts an animation will always start that animation when it is visited. There is no way to tell it to not play the second time it is viewed.

That said, a simple solution would be to have 2 versions of the same page: the initial animated version, and a copy that is static. Then manage your navigational structure in such a way that users will be navigating to the static version.

Not perfect, since any page may be visited using the general navigation in Publish Online. But it might be an alternative approach.

[JonathanArias]

if you set the animation upon page load it will do that. Have the animation load with a button action not an option?