Navigation Button Tricks for Interactive PDF on an iPad

Huw says:

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

Steve Werner says:

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.

F vd Geest says:

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.

F vd Geest says:

Look, now you also have spam!
Even my own blog has been spammed this week, terrible!

DanW MN says:

-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.

Sapan Giri says:

I managed to write a little script to generate hyperlinks on each page of a document. I will share with you guys soon .. Remind me if I havent posted sooner ..
-S

Harry Hemus says:

@Michelle

I’ve sent you comments directly to Readdle. But basically, I’ve only experienced one major upgrade that required an additional / supplemental payment.

To be honest however, since this app is so far in advance of anything that Adobe is doing, I would be happy to pay anyway.

I’ll let you know what feedback I get

scott marlow says:

Hi there;

Question: do buttons for interactive PDF in Indesign set up on master pages not work?

Sorry to butt in but i need to cut to the chase as i’m really in need of some help, i have an urgent 164 InDesign doc (split up as around 8 files, set up in Book for page numbering) and i have a master page on each a/w, which has buttons pointing to the various artworks.

Until yesterday i had all these buttons as separate items on each page and they worked when i made the interactive PDF, however now i’ve put them all on master pages (so i can edit and update them if needed) they don’t work in the PDF…..?

regards

Scott

jasa pembuatan website bandung says:

Good post. I’m facing some of these issues as well..

Sapan Giri says:

Some time back I had posted the script to generate front and back hyperlink boxes within Indesign. Here is the updated script for. In case quotes change during posting process, please revert to double quotes.

tell application “Finder”
set myUser to do shell script “whoami”

tell application “Adobe InDesign CC 2014”
activate
set myDoc to active document
tell myDoc
set activeLayer to active layer
set myLayers to name of every layer
set newLayerName to {}
repeat until myLayers does not contain newLayerName
set newLayerName to the text returned of (display dialog “Please name new layer for buttons” default answer “navButtons_1”)
if myLayers contains newLayerName then
set lockLayer to name of layer newLayerName of myDoc
set active layer to lockLayer
display dialog (“you chose ” & lockLayer & “, which already exists, try again”)
set visible of active layer to false
set locked of active layer to true
display dialog (myUser & “,

The layer already exists, please delete or hide after I have finished, I will hide it for you, OK?

Cheers Sapan”)
end if
end repeat
try
set myLayer to make new layer with properties {name:newLayerName}
set active layer to myLayer
on error
display dialog (“The layer already exists, please delete or hide after I have finished, I will hide it for you, OK?

Cheers Sapan”)
return
end try

–set Paragraph style
try
set myParaStyle to paragraph style “crossRef_hyperlink”
on error
set myParaStyle to make paragraph style with properties {name:”crossRef_hyperlink”, justification:center align, point size:12, applied font:”Frutiger Next Pro Light”, fill color:”None”, color:”None”}
set myParaStyle to paragraph style “crossRef_hyperlink”
end try

–set object styles for document 1
try
set myObjStyle to object style “pgHyperlink1″
on error
set myObjStyle to make object style with properties {name:”pgHyperlink1″, applied paragraph style:”crossRef_hyperlink”, vertical justification:center align, fill color:”None”, stroke color:”None”}
end try
set enable paragraph style of myObjStyle to true

try
set myObjStyle to object style “pgHyperlink2″
on error
set myObjStyle to make object style with properties {name:”pgHyperlink2″, applied paragraph style:”crossRef_hyperlink”, vertical justification:center align, fill color:”None”, stroke color:”None”}
end try
set enable paragraph style of myObjStyle to true

set pageCount to count of pages

–Setting up Button values
tell application “Adobe InDesign CC 2014″
set myDialog to make dialog
tell myDialog
tell (make dialog column)
tell (make dialog row)
make static text with properties {static label:”Back button:”}
end tell
tell (make dialog row)
make static text with properties {static label:”X1:”}
end tell
tell (make dialog row)
set myX1Field to make text editbox with properties {edit contents:”15″, min width:125}
end tell
tell (make dialog row)
make static text with properties {static label:”Y1:”}
end tell
tell (make dialog row)
set myY1Field to make text editbox with properties {edit contents:”165″, min width:125}
end tell
tell (make dialog row)
make static text with properties {static label:””}
end tell
end tell
tell (make dialog column)
tell (make dialog row)
make static text with properties {static label:””}
end tell
tell (make dialog row)
make static text with properties {static label:”W1:”}
end tell
tell (make dialog row)
set myWidth1 to make text editbox with properties {edit contents:”30″, min width:125}
end tell
tell (make dialog row)
make static text with properties {static label:”H1:”}
end tell
tell (make dialog row)
set myHeight1 to make text editbox with properties {edit contents:”30″, min width:125}
end tell
tell (make dialog row)
make static text with properties {static label:””}
end tell
end tell

tell (make dialog column)
tell (make dialog row)
make static text with properties {static label:”Forward button:”}
end tell
tell (make dialog row)
make static text with properties {static label:”X2:”}
end tell
tell (make dialog row)
set myX2Field to make text editbox with properties {edit contents:”50″, min width:125}
end tell
tell (make dialog row)
make static text with properties {static label:”Y2:”}
end tell
tell (make dialog row)
set myY2Field to make text editbox with properties {edit contents:”165″, min width:125}
end tell
tell (make dialog row)
make static text with properties {static label:””}
end tell
end tell
tell (make dialog column)
tell (make dialog row)
make static text with properties {static label:””}
end tell
tell (make dialog row)
make static text with properties {static label:”W2:”}
end tell
tell (make dialog row)
set myWidth2 to make text editbox with properties {edit contents:”30″, min width:125}
end tell
tell (make dialog row)
make static text with properties {static label:”H2:”}
end tell
tell (make dialog row)
set myHeight2 to make text editbox with properties {edit contents:”30″, min width:125}
end tell
tell (make dialog row)
make static text with properties {static label:””}
end tell
end tell
end tell

set myResult to show myDialog

if myResult is true then
set myX1 to edit contents of myX1Field as number
set myY1 to edit contents of myY1Field as number
set myW1 to edit contents of myWidth1 as number
set myH1 to edit contents of myHeight1 as number
set myX12 to (myX1 + myW1)
set myY12 to (myY1 + myH1)
set myX2 to edit contents of myX2Field as number
set myY2 to edit contents of myY2Field as number
set myW2 to edit contents of myWidth2 as number
set myH2 to edit contents of myHeight2 as number
set myX22 to (myX2 + myW2)
set myY22 to (myY2 + myH2)
destroy myDialog
else
error number -128
destroy myDialog
end if

tell myDoc

–actual function goes here
repeat with i from 1 to pageCount

if i > 1 then
set backFrame to make text frame at page i with properties {geometric bounds:{myY1, myX1, myY12, myX12}, applied object style:object style “pgHyperlink1”, applied paragraph style:paragraph style “crossRef_hyperlink”, contents:”dest” & (i – 1)}
set backSource to make hyperlink page item source with properties {source page item:backFrame, view setting:inherit zoom}
set backDest to make hyperlink page destination with properties {destination page:page (i – 1), view setting:inherit zoom}
set backHyperlink to make hyperlink with properties {source:backSource, destination:backDest, view setting:inherit zoom}
end if
if i < pageCount then
set frwdFrame to make text frame at page i with properties {geometric bounds:{myY2, myX2, myY22, myX22}, applied object style:object style "pgHyperlink2", applied paragraph style:paragraph style "crossRef_hyperlink", contents:"dest" & (i + 1)}
set frwdSource to make hyperlink page item source with properties {source page item:frwdFrame, view setting:inherit zoom}
set frwdDest to make hyperlink page destination with properties {destination page:page (i + 1), view setting:inherit zoom}
set frwdHyperlink to make hyperlink with properties {source:frwdSource, destination:frwdDest, view setting:inherit zoom}
end if

end repeat
set locked of myLayer to true

–invoke stored active layer to be active again
set active layer to activeLayer
end tell
end tell

–confirmation of successful run:
display dialog myUser & ", All done!

Cheers Sapan" giving up after 2
end tell
end tell
end tell

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Harry Hemus says:

Hi Mike … sorry for the delay

I think I may have mislead you regarding hyperlinks. What I really meant to say was to try just the actual link tool rather than a button. HOWEVER … I’m surprised that you have got some of the interaction to to work as much as you have ( especially the basic show / hide ). Things have moved on! I suspect you will need to talk to Readdle about a document level JavaScript to stop the app toolbars dropping down. Here is a similar scenario being discussed for epub fxl in this forum. https://epubsecrets.com/indesign-fxls-prevent-ui-from-displaying-with-touches.php

Let me know how you get on