InDesignSecretsNavigation Button Tricks for Interactive PDF on an iPad
When I’ve been working on creating interactive PDFs that will be viewed on an iPad, I’ve been frustrated by the immature applications available for reading and working with PDFs. I’ve written about this in the past year before here and here.
One of the most maddening problems was just getting simple navigation buttons (Next Page, Previous Page, etc.) to work properly. If you create navigation buttons in InDesign CS6, they work fine in Acrobat Pro or Reader for Macintosh or Windows, but they do nothing when you click on them in Adobe Reader on the iPad. Another problem is that, even with PDF Expert, a paid PDF reader app I recommended in the postings above, the buttons work, but the text for the buttons doesn’t display properly.
Creating Navigation Buttons in Acrobat
An Acrobat expert, George Johnson, explained the problem with navigation buttons creating in InDesign CS6 not working in Adobe Reader, in a posting on the Adobe Reader for iOS forum:
The problem with InDesign is in using the Go To Next/Previous Page options in InDesign, it creates an Execute a Menu Item action when exported to PDF, and since Reader for iOS doesn’t have menu items or interprets such actions otherwise, they are just ignored.
When I first created some navigation buttons in InDesign CS6 like those shown below, the Go to Destination action and Go to URL actions worked in Adobe Reader for the iPad, but the First Page, Previous Page, Next Page, Last Page buttons did not.
Navigation Buttons in InDesign
If you examine the buttons that don’t work in the Forms Editing feature of Acrobat Pro, like the Next Page button shown below, the PDF sees the navigation command as a menu command. This is a menu which appears in Adobe Reader and Acrobat for the Macintosh and Windows, but not on an iPad.
Buttons Viewed in Acrobat Pro
The workaround is to create those buttons in Acrobat. This requires a different workflow. Here’s what I did that works in Adobe Reader:
1. Instead of placing the navigation buttons on a master page, I created the four buttons (First Page, Previous Page, Next Page, Last Page) only once, and I placed them at the bottom of page 1. I didn’t give the buttons an action. (The other buttons can be created with actions in InDesign.)
2. I exported to PDF (Interactive) and opened it in Acrobat Pro. In Acrobat Pro XI, I chose Tools > Forms > Edit. In the Forms Editor, I right-clicked each of the four buttons on page 1 of the PDF, to bring up a contextual menu and chose Duplicate Field, and chose to duplicate the buttons on each page of the PDF.
Duplicating Buttons Across Pages
3. Then for each button, I created an action in Acrobat Pro which created the navigation to the desired page. I double-clicked on each button. On the Actions tab of the Button Properties dialog, I selected a Go to a Page View action.
Go to Page View Action
4. After choosing the action, I was prompted to navigate to the destination page as shown below.
Creating Page View
5. The resulting PDF, when transferred to Adobe Reader on the iPad, worked perfectly.
Viewing the Buttons on an iPad
Be aware that Adobe Reader still does not support Show/Hide buttons, nor does it support video or audio files.
Another Workaround for PDF Expert
Readdle’s PDF Expert, which I’ve written about before, has a different kind of limitation with buttons created in InDesign CS6. It has apparently created its own workaround for the navigation buttons which doesn’t require using Acrobat Pro. While the buttons work to navigate, you can’t read the text labels on the buttons! For PDF Expert, the workaround is to outline the type which is contained in the button. The screen capture above was created in PDF Expert after using that workaround.
-regarding Bots and Spam. If a mouse event is added to this form, they will not get through. (perhaps old info as I last did this months ago)
Example: dropdown menu with 2 choices: Human, SpamBot. or radio buttons with a choice.
Yes, we have to remove spam almost every day from blog posts. I deleted it.
Look, now you also have spam!
Even my own blog has been spammed this week, terrible!
You are absolutly right, Acrobat Reader fails. I’ve looked into my own document: the actions were changed in Acrobat Pro, just like you suggested. Doh! Could not remember I did that, but it seems I did. A fresh created document fails, ah well, see that is why I use Good Reader
Oke, I’ve downloaded your PDF from Dropbox, and indeed, works in Gooed Reader not in Acrobat Reader! Hmmm… Let me find out what I did on my own document, will get back on you on that.
Sorry, yes I meant Adobe Reader for iOS. looking at it now, nice round buttons I created myself, next page/previous page. There is/was a bug when they were created on the Master Page, these buttons of mine are on the document pages, but standard page actions from within InDesign.
Now I always used Good Reader because this supported these actions since two years, but that same PDF now works on my iPad3 with standard Adobe Reader, never tested it before in Adobe Reade but your post made me try… And it just worked…
???
I just retested, creating a new InDesign CS6 document with Next Page and Previous Page. Works in Acrobat Pro on Mac. Doesn’t in ADOBE READER on iPad, current version. That results matches the postings on the Adobe Reader for iOS forum I linked to above.
You’re referring to Adobe Acrobat reader. It’s Adobe Reader for iOS.
Here’s a Dropbox link to my file:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/po1t46ezag24iut/RepeatButtonTest.pdf
Here’s the thread on Adobe Reader for iOS forum:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1142056?tstart=0
Hmmmm… Created buttons right in InDesign CS6, next/previous page. Exported to interactive PDF (not print of course), opened in Acrobat viewer on my iPad: they work fine!
Also in Good Reader, but also in plain Adobe Acrobat reader on my iPad. Tap button go to next page, works like expected…
?????
That’s correct. It’s a manual process, and you have to do it for each button on each page. But it works, because the other method does not.
It’s a workaround until InDesign CS6 writes out its PDF differently, or until Adobe Reader for iOS (and presumably Android) compensates in the same way that PDF Expert does for menu items that don’t exist.
It’s a lot like all the workarounds you teach about creating EPUB from InDesign. Necessary but hopefully most of them will go away.
Steve, so you’re saying that after you dupe the fields onto each page in the PDF, you’re selecting the “next page” button on page 3, for example, and adding an action for Go to Page View, then going to page 4, then clicking Set Link, then selecting the “next page” button on page 4, adding a Go to Page View action, then going to page 5, then clicking Set Link, and so on?
Had exactly the same problem when checking a PDF on iPad the other week.
Ended up making ordinary links that were styled to look like bevelled buttons but that had no roll over etc..
Many thanks for – yet again – a really helpful post answering a real world problem
hi
have you tried the writepdf app at all out of curiosity? think its on offer at the moment