Interactive PDF problems

I'm making an interactive PDF document in Indesign.
I'm adding buttons which go to anchors I've put on different pages within the document. At first it all works fine but then when I export it to PDF maybe one of the links on the buttons is wrong, so I change it, but then that upsets the other buttons and their links mess up and link to the wrong page, when they were working fine a few minutes ago. So I redo them and they work ok and then some other ones mess up, this keeps happening. I've checked on Indesign and the buttons and anchors are correct, but when I export it they go wrong. The document is about 40 pages long and I have about 80 buttons/anchors. Any ideas?

we are running InDesign CS5 7.0
do you think this will make a difference? We were looking at the Lynda.com tutorial:
InDesign CS5: Interactive Documents and Presentations
with: James Fritz
Shows how to use InDesign to add animation and interactivity to digital documents.
Everything seemed to work here and I'm presuming he was running an earlier version?
Paul

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I have a hunch it could be an Acrobat/Reader limitation.
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Message was edited by: mountainma

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I have inherited a project which requires the creation of large interactive pdfs with lots of buttons and hyperlinks. I am having continuing problems with buttons not working and long periods of wasted time as attempted exports fail.
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The largest books range from 264 MB to 411 MB – (764 to 1024 pages). Per book, the maximum number of buttons on each page is 16, linking separate files (subsections) in the book via text anchors. The buttons are created using Master Pages which are set for each file (subsection) in the book. 50% to 60% of the pages in each file (subsection) will also be referenced as 2 hyperlinks. One is the source page hyperlink on each workflow and the second is a listing on the source page as a possible navigation path. I have created hyperlink destinations for each page which is used to generate the source and navigation hyperlinks. With 2 hyperlinks representing 50%-60% of the pages - that means the largest book contains a maximum of 1200 hyperlinks. Each file (subsection) also has it’s own separate TOC and the bookmarks that are created (optionally) during the TOC creation process.   As currenlty formatted, the book is primarily images of workflows which mean 50%-60% of the pages contain pdf images.
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Those are the limitations you have to put up with.
Apple doesn't follow the PDF spec. It chooses which PDF features it will support.
As to the version number (v5 or v6 or the new multimedia features in v9), there is different support in different versions of Reader/Acrobat as the product has developed. You just need to post a message to downloaders that they need to view the file in Adobe Reader version X or above to get the best experience.
Other industry standards face the same problem: How can you add new feature like multimedia? You can't always be backwards compatible.

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You're saying that in recent versions of Acrobat, the buttons look and work correctly, right?
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The answer, in my opinion, is to tell your readers that they should download the FREE Adobe Reader, or use a recent version (say Reader 8 and above), and if you're they are using a different reader that they may get unexpected results for viewing interactivity. And provide a link to download the FREE Adobe Reader.

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1. I'm putting in two interview excerpts for an interactive pdf. Last week when I tried to import the first MP3, I got the "cannot place this file. No filter found for requested operation" error message. I don't know anything about sound files, so I just tried To MP3 from the App store, which converted my MP3 file to another MP3 file, I guess. The new file worked fine.
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Chris

OK, I should have thought more before I answered.
So I see that Media Encounter does import audio files but it only exports video. However, I did a test with making a video file from the MP3, importing that video into InDesign, reducing the video, using the multi-function buttons, and everything worked fine. I got the warning message that the "interactive elements are clipped in ways that PDF files cannot reproduce" but it didn't interfere with playing it back. Still, I feel as if I'm cheating and something is going to come back and haunt me.
The disadvantage is that the video files are larger than the audio.
Chris

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I have tried everything – changing the transparency blend space from RGB to CMYK (and vice versa).
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Hi, and thanks for your help. That would be a bit of a faff, as I have set the whole doc up for export as a Pass4Press compliant document for professional print. However, the client also wants a navigable PDF created from the same doc. Because of the length of the document, I don't want to have two source docs, as that would be a revision control nightmare.
However, I've been playing around with the master pages, as it is items from the masters that are being rendered inconsistently. It seems odd that one master can be rendered differently on various non-overridden pages.
Guess what? I just tried disassociating the items from the masters (Override All Master Page Items) and tried again. Now, although I now have lost the benefit of using master pages, it does actually render properly and consistently now! Go figure. Must be one of those freaky little bugs. It would be cool if this could be fixed, but at least overriding masters seems to be a workaround.
Hopefully, my document is approved, and I can export the final Press PDF, save the doc, Override All Master Page Items, export the interactive PDF and not save with the disassociated masters…
Thanks for all advice and hopefully this will help someone else, or trigger one of the devs to look into this odd bug.

Interactive pdf using Indesign CS5.5 problem with layering

Hi all
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Is there a way to ensure that the lagest content box is at the top when it exported to pdf????
Regards

Have patience!
Have you tried putting that largest box on it's own layer at the top? I don't know much about buttons etc though, if you wait someone will come on here that does. A lot of contributors are in different time zones though.....

Button problems when including a video. (interactive PDF)

I am having issues when exporting my interactive PDF from In-design. On a specific page with a video included, the buttons with actions to next and previous page do not seem transition to the next page like they do throughout the rest of the PDF. It barely responds at all, if I click it over and over it sometimes goes to the next page but its not a smooth transition. I am using the latest adobe acrobat pro to view the PDF. If anyone has an answer to this problem it was be a massive help.
Cheers
Kyle

There´s something you can do, but you will need Acrobat for that.
That dotted line is a preference element called Focus Rectangle, you can hide it manually in Preferences > Forms > Show Focus Rectangle (Uncheck) or you can add one line of javascript to document level or for instance page 1 (if you change it in your preferences, only you will see the effect naturally), so javascript method is probably better in your case.
If you want to add that javasctript to page 1, simply open thumbnails panel, select page 1 thumb and choose Page Properties from panel menu. Go to Actions tab and choose Run Javascript and click Add. Then paste....
app.focusRect = false;
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Are there compatibility problems with viewing interactive PDFs?

I created an interactive PDF in InDesign, exported to v5, looks and works great, but I heard
that you can in no way guarantee your PDF will work on the user's computer
because the compatibility of the PDF across viewers is shaky at best. For
instance, there is little to no support for interactivity with Apple OS X's
"Preview" application, which is the default to open PDFs on all Mac computers.
Support even wanes across Adobe's own Acrobat versions - for instance
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others. This goes with application version number (i.e. v5 vs v6) and version
type (i.e. Acrobat Reader application vs Acrobat Reader plugin inside the web
browser vs Acrobat Pro). ---This is the first I've heard of any compatibility
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Those are the limitations you have to put up with.
Apple doesn't follow the PDF spec. It chooses which PDF features it will support.
As to the version number (v5 or v6 or the new multimedia features in v9), there is different support in different versions of Reader/Acrobat as the product has developed. You just need to post a message to downloaders that they need to view the file in Adobe Reader version X or above to get the best experience.
Other industry standards face the same problem: How can you add new feature like multimedia? You can't always be backwards compatible.

A problem with hyperlinks in my Interactive PDF on smartphones...

I hope someone can help... I exported both an interactive and for print PDF from inDesign. When I view the PDFs on my pc the hyperlinks that I've made in the document work perfectly fine. When I view the PDFs on my smartphone, the hyperlinks don't work. I've gone through many forums to make sure all my settings were correct and have tried many different things to try to get them to work, but still no luck. Has anyone come across this issue? Is there any way to get these hyperlinks to work on a smartphone?

Interactive PDFs on mobile devices are nothing short of a crapshoot.
The readers are hit or miss and the better ones require payment.
I wish I had better news for you but right now, that’s the way it is.
Bob

Interactive PDF problems

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