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Participant
Feb 1, 2012 7:05 PM UTC
Answered

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

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

Omar218197468aexCorrect answer
Participant
Aug 21, 2022 5:19 PM UTC

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 

18 replies

Alena_J
Participating Frequently
Jan 27, 2025 2:07 PM UTC

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!

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Willi Adelberger
Community Expert
Community Expert
Jan 27, 2025 2:25 PM UTC

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

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Alena_J
Participating Frequently
Jan 27, 2025 2:37 PM UTC

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

 

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Omar218197468aexCorrect answer
Participant
Aug 21, 2022 5:19 PM UTC

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 

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Rishabh_Tiwari
Legend
Aug 22, 2022 6:54 PM UTC

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

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Participant
Jun 27, 2012 7:45 PM UTC

GoodReader should work... it works for me.

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Steve Werner
Community Expert
Community Expert
Jun 27, 2012 9:55 PM UTC

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

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Folobo
Known Participant
Jul 15, 2012 4:25 PM UTC

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

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Community Expert
Feb 1, 2012 7:45 PM UTC

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.

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Steve Werner
Community Expert
Community Expert
Feb 1, 2012 7:44 PM UTC

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.

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