For Interactive PDF, Not All Readers Are Equal
While EPUB and the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite draw a lot of attention, the most popular kind of digital publishing produced in Adobe InDesign is interactive PDF. Interactive PDF has been around for several years and can be produced by most recent versions of InDesign.
It’s popular because it’s easy to produce, and it maintains the appearance of a print document. And PDFs can be viewed on virtually any platform—Macintosh, Windows, Unix, as well as tablets and smartphones. Sounds perfect doesn’t it?
Unfortunately, on user forums you often see messages like these:
I created a document in InDesign CS4 that includes videos ( MOV). When I export to PDF, and the PDF opens on my desktop it shows the videos, as soon as I email it or transfer it to a different computer the videos no longer show up.
Or this one:
I have been sent some PDF forms to fill in, and I did so in Preview. All looks OK, except two of the fields can’t be typed in…. Preview doesn’t appear to be fully compatible with PDF forms created with PC’s.
In the old days, Adobe controlled the PDF format and most people viewed PDF in Adobe Reader for Mac and Windows. However, PDF is now an ISO standard, and there are dozens of different PDF readers on different platforms. They vary widely is now much of the PDF specification they support, and messages like these reflect that fact.
Here’s an example: I have written before that the best format in which to include video in digital publications is H.264-encoded. I placed a video file in InDesign CS5.5 and exported as an interactive PDF. In Adobe Acrobat or Reader, the video plays fine.
Video Playing in Adobe Reader or Acrobat
The first user quoted above viewed their video (which happened to be a MOV file but would see the same thing with H.264) in Apple’s Preview. When I viewed my video in Apple Preview, I saw nothing at all:
No Video in Apple Preview
Then I transferred the PDF to my iPad and viewed it in several PDF readers. You would expect that the Adobe Reader for mobile devices would have no problem, but all it shows is the poster image. The movie file (in any format) doesn’t play:
Poster Only in iOS Adobe Reader
Finally, I viewed it in several other PDF readers (Apple iBooks, GoodReader, PDF Expert, and ezPDF Reader). Only ezPDF Reader and PDF Expert* could actually play an embedded video file:
ezPDF Reader Plays Video
What Works and What Doesn’t
Here’s an overview of some other common features in interactive PDF files and how they work. I couldn’t test all applications or apps, or all platforms. My testing was on my Macintosh and my iPad (iOS operating system).
Internal Links: Links created in InDesign to other text or objects in the same PDF worked well in Apple Preview and most iOS PDF readers. But links don’t work in Adobe Reader for iOS.
URL Links: URL links created in InDesign work in Apple Preview. All iOS PDF readers I tested except Adobe Reader for iOS support them.
Navigation Buttons: Buttons like Go to Next Page or Go to Previous Page work in Apple Preview, Good Reader (iOS) and PDF Expert (iOS) but not the other apps. But no other application or app I found supports other kinds of buttons (like Show/Hide).
Embedded Bookmarks: Bookmarks created in InDesign or Adobe Acrobat appear in Apple Preview. They work in all iOS readers I tested (including Adobe Reader for iOS). However, they may appear with different names, like Outlines or Table of Contents. Most readers also allow the creation of Bookmarks but these are not cross-application compatible and only work in the same reader.
Annotations/Markup: Annotations created in Adobe Acrobat appear or partially appear in Apple Preview, Good Reader (iOS), ezPDF Reader (iOS), and PDF Expert. They can be created in these applications but are generally not cross-application compatible. And not all the annotation types created by Adobe Reader/Acrobat are supported.
Interactive Forms: As the second user comment above pointed out, there are problems with interactive forms created in Adobe Acrobat and opened in Apple Preview. iOS ezPDF Reader and PDF Expert also support opening forms and filling them in. I didn’t have time to test whether they corrupt Acrobat forms but I would be very wary.
Recommendations
For interactive PDF files which will be viewed on a computer (Mac or Windows), I think you should strongly suggest to your readers they they view your file in Adobe Acrobat or the free Adobe Reader. As I mentioned in the video posting, if you embed H.264-encoded video, they need to use at least Acrobat or Reader 9 or later in order to view them.
For interactive PDF files which are to be viewed on a tablet device, you need to reduce your expectations that interactivity will be able to be viewed by every viewer. I’d keep things simple, and don’t make your presentation depend on showing all the interactivity. But Adobe Reader for iOS is very disappointing, and I cannot recommend it. GoodReader ($4.99), ezPDF Reader ($2.99) and PDF Expert ($9.99) are well rated and support many more features.
App developers on the iPad have added many new features to their PDF viewers in the past year, and I expect that strong competition between them will improve viewing of interactive PDF files in the future.
*PDF Expert added 4/2/12
Excellent article Steve! I concur with what you say about Adobe Reader on the iPad. So disappointing! And a few months ago they were asking people on Twitter to vote for them for the best PDF app in 2011. Ye gods.
However as far as I know it’s the only app that can open PDF portfolios and rights-managed PDFs.
PDF format is good for sharing the appearance of the document but terrible for sharing the actual contents of it. Half-ar**ed attempts to change this such as reflowing text, tagging and similar features came into later specifications.
But, as the author mentioned, ‘It’s popular because it’s easy to produce’ especialy from design-centric applications like InDesign or Quark. This lazy approach leads to monstrosities like ‘e-books’ which are essentially print documents converted to PDF and sold for extra profit. You pay your £15 for £40 book only to realise you have to print it anyway because two column layout simply won’t work on screen.
XHTML makes clear division between the contents and the design and is more suitable for electronic publishing. I can only hope that the readers will boycot improper use of PDF format so the designers will be forced to rethink how they present their creations.
OT: Similar can be said about flash apart from the fact that flash has no place of rightfull application at all (sorry addobe)
Marcel
!!! OFF TOPIC !!!
Sorry to ask here.
In what time zone are the dates in comments? Eastern, Central, Mountain or Pacific. I always struggle to convert them to my local time.
Thank you
Marcel
This interactive PDF issue since the last two CS is a nightmare. I have advised to all my clients not to consider anymore the PDF for long interactive documents because this technology has added more problems overt the last 4 years.
Nice article Steve!
When we at VIGC did our PDF viewer tests last year (http://www.graphicbrain.com/studies-by-vigc/pdf-viewers/) we als included a few interactive features. And the average PDF viewer for iPad has a very poor handling of those, so same conclusion.
We recently also tested Adobe Reader on multiple devices (iOS, Android, Windows Phone), not for interactivity, but for print related stuff (among which the most common issue: overprinting, next to that we also tested color management). And also here it is disappointing… Reader can not be trusted for print related work on any tablet… Sad but true…
Eddy
VIGC
Excellent article.
I’d like to ask a question that’s both off topic and on topic!
Im attending an online seminar, which is billed to be at mountain time. Now what time is that in London (GMT) ?
Thanks
Derek (UK)
@Marcel and Derek100: I believe the time zone for this site is set to Mountain. I’m not sure why. You can convert time by doing a google search or by checking http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=75 (pacific time is one hour earlier).
Good article Steve! Very informative. My company creates paper catalogs and interactive PDF versions of those catalogs and we deal with the interactive issues on a regular basis and the tablet platforms especially. I’ve felt all along that the customer pressure for better performance will drive the software venders to create better products to address the interactive issues. I just hope it is sooner rather than later.
sas: instead of better products I would welcome better (open) standards independent of any “product”
David: Thanks
Marcel
As a designer of multimedia-enhanced ebooks, I was very excited when the iPad debuted and was crestfallen when it not only did not support .swf, but most of the bells and whistles of Reader. I had a conversation with the creator of GoodReader at the time via email. I inquired whether his product was slated to include handling multimedia; in fact I encouraged it strongly, pointing out the obvious market this would drive. His response was immediate; he would be working in that direction. Well, two years later, I’m still waiting for him to see the light!
This is a thorough and well-written article – good job. I’m an avid follower of Anne Marie and am waiting for Adobe to bridge the gap with less work-around for fixed layout from InDesign – and to include the bells and whistles that Acrobat Reader has long served. Actually, I find it rather incredible that something so obvious has been overlooked for so long. Well, something to live for!!
All good to know. I am currently putting together an interactive pdf annual report and having nightmares to boot! Can you place scrollable text boxes in the indesign document (5.5), viewable in the pdf? (I created the scroll box in flash, tlf text,saved as a swf movie) and it is not viewable on all macs I have tried it on. Is there a secret handshake I am missing? Should I just place the swf text movie direct into the pdf once exported? Should I create the scroll box differently? Using the overlay creator? (I was under the impression that only worked for folios?) HELP!!
I am trying to convert my thesis to an interractive PDF. It is long..100,000 words and I have around 600 videoclips to insert into it. What format shoudl I use? Someone tells me flv is going out?? I have the option of .mov or mpg4? or flv which is smaler. Should I be hyerlinking the video s or embedding them which I iagine will make the document too big. Any ideas woudl really be appreciated.
@Robin: You are right that the overlay creator is only for folios, not PDF files. It sounds as though the PDF works in some places but not others? That’s the point I’m making in this article. It should work in Acrobat 9, but if you cannot control what PDF viewer people will use, then you probably should not use it.
@Rae de Lisle: Check out Steve Werner’s article here — http://indesignsecrets.com/picking-the-best-video-format-for-digital-publishing.php