Trying to use buttons and Interactive PDF to create a document

[Andrea Coyle]

I am trying to create a document that uses buttons to show and hide additional content.

I have done this before on a small scale, but now need to have the attached pages work. You will click on the circle button which will bring up a piece of content, when you are done reading that content, you click on it to hide it, then move on the next topic (button).  I have used "On Click", hide/show button. It works when I have one or two, but when I have all of them "hooked up" it doesn't work. After doing some research, it seems as if Interactive PDFs are a thing of the past??? If so, what is the "new" way of doing something like this? My document needs to be a PDF, web isn't an option. Can anyone offer suggestions?

Is there a plug-in that can be used? Thank you for any suggestions!

[Laubender · Accepted solution]

Hi,

if "web" is not an option I cannot see a solution.
Not a solution that will work on "every" system, with "every" PDF reader and "every" device.

If you can make sure that only Adobe Reader on Windows 10 and Mac OS X is used by your customer or readers, then one should be able to make it work using Acrobat Pro DC. Plus perhaps JavaScript enabled in Adobe Reader.

The "new" way would indeed include HTML5 and browsers only.

Or specialized apps for diverse devices.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[Andrea Coyle]

When you say "use Acrobat Pro DC", what needs to be done from within that program? Anything additional other than what is set up in Indesign?

Thank you - this is very helpful!

[BobLevine]

What Uwe means is that outside of Acrobat and Reader on desktops, this kind of thing is probably not going to work. Even with it, something this complex is still a bit of a crapshoot.

I'm sorry to tell you this, but you're going to have rethink this project completely. As Uwe alluded to there's no magic bullet here. Perhaps if you could explain exactly how you're going to use this and how it's to be distributed we can come up with some suggestions.

[Laubender]

"When you say "use Acrobat Pro DC", what needs to be done from within that program? Anything additional other than what is set up in Indesign?"

Don't know. Could be that you need to do all the interaction within Acrobat Pro and to make that work also do some Acrobat JavaScript. For that ask this in the Adobe Acrobat forums.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )