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• • August 30, 2012 at 1:35 pm #63018
    mBook

    Member

    Hello everyone,

    I'm trying to find two solutions and would love help with either or both!

    I use InDesign to create ebooks in the PDF format. I subscribe to the CreateCloud, so I have access to all Adobe softwares.

    My quests:

    1. I would like a work-around/idea for creating a PDF book page with a transparent background, meaning that you could see through the page to the page beneath it. Not white, not a transparent graphic on a white page, but a truly transparent page that you can manipulate with a mouse. I've seen this done once somewhere in a .swf, but am seeking a PDF solution, even if it means positioning a .swf over the .pdf page — as long as they are integrated to see through. I've tried creating this in InDesign, but the page always resolves to white.

    2. Second request has to do with creating a PDF that has an irregular shape from an InDesign document. i.e. rounded corners, round, etc. I've tried using a white shape across a background that matches PDF gray, but it's not right with a page flip.

    Would love to hear from anyone with a creative suggestion to accomplish either of these.

  • August 31, 2012 at 2:32 am #63019
    Theunis De Jong

    Member

    1. The background of InDesign's PDFs are transparent. Just open one in Photoshop, for example, and you'll see.

    … The fact that your PDF viewer draws a white rectangle at the bottom has nothing to do with InDesign. What would you expect when viewing a “transparent” PDF on your computer — your desktop background? the electronics of your monitor? (And if you print that same PDF on your desktop printer, should the paper come out transparent?)

    2. Rounded corners are not supported in the PDF specification.

    You cannot compare PDF with SWF in almost any way.

    PDFs are 'electronic pages'. The PDF format is not designed, nor meant, for about anything else than displaying a page on a computer.

    SWF is best described as 'an animated image program'. An SWF cannot 'exist' on its own, it has to 'run' inside something else, such as a web page. Even when it's a single static image, it still has to “run”, because it's really a little program at heart.

    Best advice is not to try to use software and documents for things they are not designed for. You would not think of making an entire book using 72 dpi bitmaps drawn with Paint, would you? For your intended purpose, the PDF file format is not suitable; and using InDesign to create an e-book with, is using the wrong software.

  • August 31, 2012 at 10:11 am #63024
    mBook

    Member

    Thank you for your response, Jongware. I have, however, tried creating a transparent page in Photoshop and then making a PDF of it. It was not transparent in Acrobat Professional and did not reveal the page beneath it as one would assume a transparent page would do. To answer your question, no, I did not expect to see the electronics of my monitor; I expected to see a transparent image that masked an image beneath it; i.e. a page, although I appreciate your sense of humor.

    The PDF (portable document format, i.e. image) and the SWF co-exist when viewed with Acrobat due to the Acrobat's built-in viewer. A SWF does support transparency and can be set up for pages of a book, so it is not an unreasonable assumption that it could be used to layer a PDF and provide the transparent effect. I simply was looking for a solution that someone who thinks creatively out of the box might have developed.

    I'm also afraid I would disagree about the efficacy of using InDesign to create ebooks. I've been using InDesign since 1.0, as well as its predecessor, PageMaker, to create multimedia-enhanced ebooks for about 15 years and have sold these books commercially for as long through major bookselling chains. I've consistently looked for ways to be creatively unique; hence my transparency and irregular page shape queries. I really do appreciate the time you took to consider these questions, however, and thank you for that.

  • August 31, 2012 at 5:05 pm #63026
    Theunis De Jong

    Member

    Apologies for underestimating your skills.

    Nevertheless, although a PDF can (and indeed usually has) “transparent” parts, i.e., parts that are not actively drawn and filled — as, indeed, opening a PDF in Photoshop or Illustrator shows (and even modern Acrobat Pros have a “show transparency grid” function) — it's up to the PDF viewer software how that appears.

    If you place a PDF into software that supports its transparent parts, you will be able to “see through”. If not … then you can't. Note that in fact InDesign does support importing PDFs with either a transparent or white background.

    I don't have any knowledge of how a PDF gets inserted into an SWF, but I seriously doubt it's still a vector image. (You are free to comment on that. Always glad to learn, I am. My current Best Bet is it gets converted to a plain raster image, which in itself would not prohibit transparency, but then you're at the mercy of the programmers that wrote the conversion routine.)

  • August 31, 2012 at 5:21 pm #63027
    mBook

    Member

    I try to stick to Acrobat Reader's abilities since that name seems to be most universally recognized and “un” feared for downloading so I will have to do most testing on that part. Actually, the .SWF gets inserted into the PDF – but I think you're right in that I'm probably asking for something that the software simply doesn't support and will just have to be patient or find other bells and whistles. The one I'm really looking forward to is the PDF's ability to embed a browser that reads HTML without leaving the program or launching an external browser. Thus, you would be able to browse a live page without leaving the ebook page in Reader.

    Would love to hear your views on that.

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