Dear readers,

i'm a long term indesign user for print production, but relatively new to the interactive/screen part of Indesign (though i do advanced HTML/CSS/JS as well) …

On customer request, i am experimenting to create a document that should assist a few dozen people presenting a product. The idea is to have a tool that gives "adequate information on the fingertip".

So i have CreativeSuite5.5, Adobe saying "ipad – just great and easy", and trying to understand .

I've learned that you can provide that kind of non-to-be-sold-documents with folio builder addon, that loads them on my acrobat.com account, from where it is distributed to the viewer app that is installed on the targets' ipads. That's not how my brain works (thinking in files and local storage), but it's okay.

Now i'm trying to create some very basic kind of navigation for the information that should be available. I have created two buttons in Indesign, one that holds some content (text container), and one that is made to show/hide that first content button. this works as expected if i view this in Indesign's preview window. I want to create 3 more of these buttons/contentboxes that can be activated like "subpages". I have another button, that links to a second page. This works fine too.

All that i described so far was done with Indesign's interactive tools, not yet with overlay creator (do i need it?).

Next step would be to export this and test it in adobe content viewer … I don't have an iPad available yet (but ordered), but i just exported the whole thing with folio builder (PDF format, as JPG/PNG does not sound interactive at all) and use the preview for the desktop content viewer: it says it does not yet support PDF and HTML content in the desktop edition (iOS version does though).

Question is: will this work in iOS version as i have created it, or am i doing it completely wrong by creating buttons that activate/deactivate other buttons with the interactivity tools?

If everything else fails, i'll do it in HTML … but i'd like to learn anyway if and how this can be done with Indesign.

thanks for your help

tom

Thanks for your reply.

If it is up to me, it does not need to be a "App" or that interactive. But my customer has seen the "cool way" another company works with the ipad, and want's something as flashy as they have … so it's about the visual representation – i fear that jumping to different pages in a PDF won't do the job, even it would be suitable.

To make a bit clearer what i want to do: I have a Product X, with 4 info boxes (text description / technical data / optional components / prices). This product is presented on one page – the info boxes first are represented only by 4 buttons, that make a window "pop up" in an animation when touched. (More products to be on more pages – each one with 4 "sub-elements".)

I have set up quite what i want it to do in Indesign (and it's animation preview window), the only question is: will this work on iPad too (i'll find out i an few days), or do I have to use overlay creator (which i don't quite understand how it could help in this from what i can see in this window and adobe's help files)?

As far as i do understand, iPad pdf viewers can't display interactive PDFs and Flash is not allowed …
So i'm left with folio format i don't yet quite understand what's possible, or create it in HTML (and hoping this will work – best in fullscreen mode …)