Adobe Creative Suite 2 How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques

2017-07-07 02:10:07

#67. Building an Interactive PDF in InDesign

Sure, InDesign is a page layout application through and through, but it turns out to be a very capable tool for getting your ideas into an interactive format. Among InDesign's well-known page layout tools are less familiar features for creating interactive PDF files. You can create hyperlinks and bookmarks that result in navigational aides in the exported PDF. You can also add buttons to your InDesign document and then assign actions such as jumping to a page, playing a movie, or hiding elements.

Using Hyperlink Destinations

Text anchors require that you set up a hyperlink destination first by choosing New Hyperlink Destination from the Hyperlinks palette menu. Setting up hyperlink destinations is a good idea for pages as well, especially if you're still shuffling the pages around. If a page moves in your document, you only have to update the hyperlink destination instead of several hyperlinks that directly point to a specific page.

Adding bookmarks and hyperlinks

You can add bookmarks to your InDesign document to make it easier navigate the exported PDF. The bookmarks appear in the PDF within the Bookmarks tab in Acrobat or Adobe Reader (Figure 67a). To create a bookmark, open the Bookmarks palette in InDesign by choosing Window > Interactive > Bookmarks. Next, decide where you want the bookmark to jump to by clicking an insertion point in text, highlighting text, selecting a graphic, or choose an entire page by double-clicking on a page in the Pages palette. Then just click the New Bookmark button on the Bookmarks palette to create the bookmark.

Figure 67a. Bookmarks that you create in your InDesign document (left) end up in the exported PDF (right), making it easy for readers to navigate your document.

Hyperlinks are similar to bookmarks but allow you to set up navigational links directly within your document's content much like a Web page. Adding and managing hyperlinks is all done in the Hyperlinks palette (Window > Interactive > Hyperlinks). Select the text or graphic you want to act as your hyperlink's source and then click the New Hyperlink button in the Hyperlinks palette. In the New Hyperlink dialog (Figure 67b), name your hyperlink and choose a destination. Destinations can be other pages (even in other documents), a URL (e.g., www.adobe.com), or a text anchor. You can then choose an appearance for your hyperlink and click OK. When you export your PDF, be sure to select the Include Bookmarks and Hyperlinks option in the Export PDF dialog.

Figure 67b. Use the New Hyperlink dialog to specify a destination and appearance for your hyperlink.

Creating buttons

Advanced Button Techniques

If you want to show or hide an element, make it a button first and then create another button with the behavior Show/Hide Fields. This behavior allows you to toggle the visibility of any other buttons in your document. You can also add your buttons on master pages for behaviors like previous and next page, so you don't have to repeatedly add them to your pages. Buttons can also have rollover states. Choose View > Interactive > States to bring up this palette to add rollover and down states to your buttons.

You can create buttons in InDesign and set them up to perform actions when the document is exported to a PDF. You can create a button by using the Button tool to drag out an area on top of text or a graphic. (A button acts as an overlay, so you still need to create content for your button.) But the easiest way to create a button is to select your button content (text or graphics) and choose Object > Interactive > Convert to Button. Once you've created your button, you can then assign actions to it by choosing Object > Interactive > Button Options. In the General tab, you can edit the name, description, and visibility attributes of the button. Switch to the Behaviors tab of the dialog (Figure 67c) to add behaviors triggered by certain events. For example, to show the next page in your document when you click the button, you would choose Event: Mouse Up along with Behavior: Go To Next Page. Remember to click the Add button in the lower-right corner of the dialog to add the behavior you've set up. To make your buttons function in your exported PDF, select the Include Interactive Elements option in the Export PDF dialog.

Figure 67c. The Button Options dialog offers several useful behaviors that you can associate to common events like mouse clicks and rollovers.

Placing Movie and Sound Clips

You can place movie and sound clips into your InDesign documents just as you'd place any type of supported graphics file. QuickTime 6 or later is required to place QuickTime, AVI, MPEG, and SWF movie clips, and WAV, AIF, and AU sound clips. Although the clips can't be played in InDesign, they can be exported in a PDF and played in Acrobat Professional or Adobe Reader. You can even create buttons to play the media.