Can InDesign handle "hidden" text boxes?

I've been tasked with creating a Userguide Lab Manual with student exercises. The client wants content to be in three layers: 1) basic tasks listed, 2) accessible "hints" to complete tasks, 3) accessible step-by-step explanation to complete tasks. Levels 2 & 3 should be initially "hidden" text boxes that the student can access if needed.
Can InDesign handle this? I realize this is something HTML can handle ... but the client wants a e-PUB document, something portable, in the end.
Can you give me advice? I've looked and looked at many elements of InDesign. Often I see "hidden" elements must be converted to an image (button?); elements of Interactivity usually means video or animation... but I want editable text. In theory, we want to be able to develop ONE master, and then reveal (show) different layers ... and i the end publish three levels of Userguide Lab Manual.
Is this possible?

@Pinenuthunter – did you consider iBooks Author app (Mac OSX 10.7 and above) for this task and publishing in ibooks file format to the iBooks app on iPads or to iBooks app in OSX 10.9 (Mavericks)?
Here a link to a Lynda.com tutorial:
Adding an interactive lab quiz
From:
iBooks Author for Teachers: Creating a Lab Manual
with Mike Rankin
http://www.lynda.com/iBooks-Author-tutorials/Adding-interactive-lab-quiz/117541/125117-4.h tml
Uwe

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Can you calculate multiple text boxes to achieve a total value? If so how is that done? I am trying to create a order form where multiple items can be purchased but i would like the values of each item to calculate so I can achieve a total value.

Can you calculate multiple text boxes to achieve a total value? If so how is that done? I am trying to create a order form where multiple items can be purchased but i would like the values of each item to calculate so I can achieve a total value.

Hi sashby51,
I've moved your discussion to the PDF Forms forum--the folks who visit this forum regularly should be able to point you in the right direction.
Best,
Sara

After upgrading to Firefox 8.0.1, now on at least one website I use, it limits the number of characters that I can type in a text box to 275, is there a way to fix this?

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That may be part of the coding that the web page is using.
*https://developer.mozilla.org/en/HTML/element/input

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How can I correct "hidden" text in a searchable PDF file?

This seems like a simple question. However, the answers are invariably complex, do not yield the desired result, and often answer a different question entirely. I say all that just to warn people up front that the "problem" is easier than how many people and PDF application developers, including Adobe, typically understand it while the proposed "solutions" are invariably a total...well, botch is a reasonable word if a bit understated.
Here is the actual problem:
I have "searchable" PDF files created by scanning documents and running them through an OCR process. I create "searchable" PDF files in order to archive, index, and eventually enable searching for the documents scanned. A "searchable" PDF satisfies those criteria better than any other commonly used, "portable" archive format -- though I would be happy if someone could point out an obvious alternative I may have overlooked. I do not need perfect OCR results. If I need a document to edit or perhaps feed into a spreadsheet or database, I expect to be able to reprocess the page images in a given "searchable" PDF file to OCR and convert the contents to Word, RTF, Excel, or another file format as necessary with more care for the results than for the archived document itself. Therefore, the "searchable" PDF document is the scanned page images which compose it while the OCR generated "searchable" text is secondary, but still important. Therefore, each file must contain scanned page images of sufficient detail to be efficiently converted by OCR if possible and legible enough for whoever views the images to be able to work out what an OCR process may fail to understand. Once scanned, those pages are the "document" and therefore "immutable." However, OCR is imperfect. For a searchable document archive, it does not have to be, but some errors are significant in that they may prevent the document from being found by a search. Therefore, there must be a way to view and, if necessary, edit the "hidden" text in a "searchable" PDF without altering the visual display of a document or how it is printed. No strike-throughs. No visible "corrections." None of the stuff PDF editors want to insert into a PDF file when editing it. I do not want to edit the document without exporting it to a format appropriate for an editable document. I just want adequately "correct" hidden text in a "searchable" PDF file.
I apologize for the length and redundancy in my description of the problem. However, past attempts to explain my problem and objectives as well as what I have seen in reply to similar queries across the Internet indicate that most people trying to answer this question come at it from the same point of view shared by most, if not all, PDF tool or application vendors. They seem to think that any desire to edit a PDF file is a desire to have a PDF word processor of some sort. Or, they assume that the OCR process employed may need tweaking of the means by which people apply it and then a process like "find suspects" is adequate to deal with any errors. But no, those are not what I am trying to accomplish and answers which address those topics do not answer this question.
In short, which tool or application from any vendor will reveal the "searchable" hidden text in a PDF produced by any OCR or other process and then enable corrections to the hidden text without changing any document display parameters at all? Note, hidden text typically includes bounding box information denoting the portion of the image from which the text was recognized. That information must not be lost or changed when editing the "searchable" text.
So, any tools or applications capable of doing this? If Adobe Acrobat XI Pro can (use of a trial copy demonstrated that the hidden text content can be reviewed, but editing did not work by any straight-forward means I could work out while trying out the application), fine. However, $500.00 list or even a $200.00 possible upgrade from a copy of Adobe Acrobat X Standard which came with my scanner is a lot of money for personal use when review and edit of the OCR generated hidden text in a "searchable" PDF file is the only function I require. Therefore, other suggested tools or applications which do what I need for less would be greatly appreciated.

My "claim"? Actually I've made no "claim" such as you've mentioned.
Simply stated your OP has foundational premises that presume as factual what is not.
Here, we're in Adobe's hosted user forum for Acrobat.
Any other application use is not material.
Acrobat XI provides 3 OCR methods.
Searchable Image, Searchable Image (Exact) & ClearScan.
Only the first two provide the "hidden" text output.
(Glyphs have no stroke, no fill)
From back to the Acrobat 3 product family the design functionality of Searchable Image and Searchable Image (Exact) has been to facilitate the use of Find / Search.
The "hidden" text is can be touched up. Acrobat Pro provides the facility to view the hidden text.
So you can see what the OCR output that correlates to the bit-map images of the characters that are present.
With Acrobat XI Pro use Tools - Protection -Remove Hidden Information
In the Remove Hidden Information pane select "Hidden text" then "Show preview".
The default for the preview is "Show Only Hidden Text".
Back in the PDF --
You'd select some of the hidden text and retype what you suspect is the correct string of characters.
Save and return to the preview of the hidden text.
If you got it right, good. Continue.
If not, darn - try again.
Plug 'n chug -- somewhere over the rainbow it'll be done eh.
Full disclosure -- this is something I've done (enquiring minds don't you know).
I've found it to be a rather Sisypean undertaking.
So, "doable" but not practicable.
This is to be expected because such touchups are not the concern / focus of the output from Searchable Image or Searchable Image (Exact) - (the names tell it all).
To have touchup "editablity" of an OCR output using Acrobat make use of ClearScan.
ClearScan replaces recognized character bit-maps with a character from an Acrobat internal font.
The character strings can be selected to change to a generic, system available font.
Something that is good to know when embarking on the "tweak the PDF" journey is that PDF (the file format / technology as defined by its ISO Standard, ISO 32000-1) does not tolerate "editing". PDF is decidely not a word processor file format and "editing" can quickly render a PDF unusable.
Minor touchups can be made and your best "tool" for this is still Acrobat Pro. (Save As often and periodically "bank" the PDF via some file rename scheme.)
Be well...

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Hello,
After a great trip to Thailand I want to make a book of all my pictures using Aperture 3. At some places in the book I use a title to indicate what will be shown on the image. This title is made by the text box and it is put on the image itself. Now what I would like is to make is a transparent bar of the text box, so that I still can see the details of the image through this bar and also read the text about the image easily.
I have no problems making this text box and putting it in the right place, the thing that I don't understand, after two nights of trying, is how to make this text box transparent.
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Perhaps I need to reformulate what I exactly want to do...!
I would like to use transparent text boxes but not as transparent as the image itself. I want to show the text box as a real bar but slightly different than the original image colour. So something between a normal image and a white bar so that it will be a bit transparent but also shown as a real bar..
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If it is going to edit text, then you have the edit text tool and not the select object tool. However, these have changed in functionality between versions. I just checked AA XI and if you select the edit text and images under the content editing tools, you can select a text box and move it around. I think this is what you wanted. You have to move the cursor to the edge of the box to move it.

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Hi bluecraby2k,
If I understand your question, you don't want to use the Signature form field, because your client feels that might be too complicated for some users. Is that correct?
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I was in Pages. Sorry about that fellows. And yes, you're right Jerrold, the Help for Numbers offers information that is incorrect. Even the folks at Apple are a bit confused by the Numbers text box!
Even if incorrect, I like the new Help system. It seems much faster to access than the old system.

How can I find a text box with a specific word in it ?

Hi,
I have hundreds of settlement names on a map created with the text tool. How can I search on the name of one of them and find it on my map ?
I am with FH9 but the method would no doubt be backwards compatible from MX. If it isnt I would launch MX just for this exercise.
Would this also work if the word was part of a text box text ?
I have the luxury of it being the entire text box !
Cheers
Envirographics

If you have one large text box to search for the word, select it, then go to EDIT>FIND & REPLACE>TEXT...
Type in your word and click FIND NEXT button. If you have multiple occurances of the name, keep clicking the FIND NEXT button until the word hilites.
If you have scattered text boxes on your map, don't select any of them but still go through the EDIT>FIND & REPLACE>TEXT... routine I mentioned. FreeHand will look through all text boxes to find your word.
Oh yeah, this works the same in FreeHand 8 thru FHMX.

Difficulty editing text in iPhoto book project. I add a page layout with text, but can't edit the text box., Difficulty editing text in iPhoto book project. I add a page layout with text, but can't edit the text box.

I'm am having difficulty editing text in the iphoto book project. I have a text box that is pre-populated with text. I can edit the text once, then if I need to change something, it won't let me delete anything, only add to it. Anyone else having this problem?
Thanks!

You should be able to double click in the text box and add or delete text. First make a temporary, backup copy (if you don't already have a backup copy) of the library and try the following:
1 - delete the iPhoto preference file, com.apple.iPhoto.plist, that resides in your
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2 - delete iPhoto's cache file, Cache.db, that is located in your
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Click to view full size
3 - launch iPhoto and try again.
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OT

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Hello,
If you want to add image to it's background then you can select the SubMenu and use the fill option to fill an image to it.
Make sure you uncheck "Edit together" option in Menu properties so that you can add different images to different submenus.
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Please have a look at the screenshot showing how to create Manual menu :
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Sachin

Can InDesign handle "hidden" text boxes?

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