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• • April 4, 2019 at 3:14 am #115810
    Vv Cc

    Member

    Hi guys!
    I’m running InDesign CC 2019 on Mac. I got an Android phone.
    I followed all steps to make an interactive PDF. I got an small video on it. I exported it and I sent the pdf to my phone. when I opened the PDF nothing is playing, it’s all static. The video it’s just an image. Yes, I checked the “All media….” and all. It’s weird, I use Adobe Acrobat Reader (last version) on the phone but nothing. However, I have PDFExpert on my Mac and it plays perfectly… what’s going on?

    PLEASE HELP

  • April 4, 2019 at 6:58 am #115819
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    Interactive PDF plays VERY differently on different devices and different PDF readers. And yes, other readers are sometimes better than Adobe’s. Yes, it is frustrating. PDF is not currently a good format for video, buttons, or most other interactivity.

    • April 4, 2019 at 7:58 pm #115846
      Vv Cc

      Member

      Oh man….. this really piss me off…..now i got InDesign for nothing…..
      ANything I can do? I have to create something interactive that can be send to people via email, chat or people can download it…it needs to be able to include videos, gif and some animations…any ideas?

  • April 5, 2019 at 3:10 pm #115879
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    The best option is probably fixed layout EPUB (FXL). Search this site for details. All Mac and iOS people have iBooks installed, which is great with FXL. But Windows and Android users will need to find an appropriate reader.

  • February 3, 2021 at 10:02 am #14335769
    Justin Putney

    Member

    For anyone else finding this post, I’ve written up detailed reasons why an Interactive PDF will not work in almost any circumstance:

    Interactive PDF is dead—here’s what you can create from InDesign that’s even better

    • February 3, 2021 at 10:17 am #14335770
      David Blatner

      Keymaster

      Well, I have to respectfully disagree with you, Justin. Interactive PDF is extremely useful in a wide variety of circumstances. Your headline is wonderful clickbait, but it’s not entirely true.

      I mean, yes, a lot of Interactive PDF stuff is broken (audio, video, buttons…) and there’s a bunch of stuff that never worked to start with (animations, multi-state objects, etc.)… BUT there are some things that work fine: hyperlinks, bookmarks, and — most importantly — FORMS! If you need to make an interactive form, Interactive PDF is the way to go.

      Note to readers: Justin’s company, Ajar Productions, is a sponsor of CreativePro… but more importantly, they make a truly awesome tool called in5, which lets you export HTML from InDesign. I love it! And everyone should know about it. And it is a good replacement for Interactive PDF in some situations. But PDF is still better for some things. :-)

  • February 3, 2021 at 10:29 am #14335771
    Justin Putney

    Member

    Hi David,

    Love you and I respectfully disagree right back. ;-)

    I’m not claiming that PDF is dead as a format. I use it everyday. It’s wonderful.

    I’m claiming that the *interactive* part is dead.

    To me, hyperlinks (and bookmarks, which are just a special case of hyperlinks) are not enough to call something “interactive.” People expect so much more out of that word and certainly when exporting with InDesign’s capabilities.

    A PDF with hyperlinks is just a PDF to me. Word Documents have hyperlinks, but we don’t call them “Interactive Word Documents.” It sounds silly because we just expect that a rich text format can have hyperlinks.

    The forms are great, but they don’t work in all readers either. It’s much safer to go with an online service like DocuSign (or similar) if you want to ensure your forms will work for everyone.

  • February 3, 2021 at 10:46 am #14335772
    Justin Putney

    Member

    P.S. Out of curiosity, I went to Export > Adobe PDF (Print) in InDesign 2021 and the dialog has options for Hyperlinks and Bookmarks, so even InDesign (and the PDF spec?) don’t consider these to be interactive features.

  • February 3, 2021 at 12:41 pm #14335775
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    You’re totally right that bookmarks and hyperlinks are part of the regular “PDF (Print)” spec. So I think part of the issue here is that you’re talking about a very specific thing: the item in InDesign’s Export dialog box called “PDF (Interactive)”. That is not the same thing as the generic “Interactive PDF.”

    • An Interactive PDF is any PDF that is primarily designed to be viewed on screen and has some interactive features — including hyperlinks. A good example is InDesign Magazine, which is exported from InDesign using PDF (Print) but is designed for on-screen interaction (though some people do print it).
    • The PDF (Interactive) feature is a method for exporting a PDF from InDesign that includes a few additional interactive features that PDF (Print) cannot do.

    Neither of these is dead. Both have their uses.

    As for PDF forms: It’s not helpful to say “they don’t work in all readers.” (There are plenty of HTML features that do not work in all browsers.) Form fields work in enough readers, and they’re extremely well supported in Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader.

    There are great reasons to use “interactive PDFs” and there are great reasons to use “PDF (Interactive)”.

    As I said, I love what you’re doing with HTML, but it’s still just HTML. You cannot turn it into a document that can be emailed, or downloaded. It is not good for archival purposes, or printing. PDF is an extraordinary format for all those things.

  • February 3, 2021 at 12:56 pm #14335776
    Justin Putney

    Member

    I think we’re going around in circles, David. :-)

    I agree 100%, if you want to send something as an email attachment (or archive something or print something), PDF is a great format. However, I don’t think it’s accurate to call it “interactive.”

    This isn’t a slight against awesome content distributed as PDFs, like InDesign Magazine.

    Again, I use PDF every day. And I love it.

    Re: “The PDF (Interactive) feature is a method for exporting a PDF from InDesign that includes a few additional interactive features that PDF (Print) cannot do” — what’s left? Fullscreen mode, etc is specific to Adobe Acrobat/Reader and won’t work in most other readers. What distinguishes an “interactive PDF” that is reliable across readers?

    I would qualify that HTML can be downloaded…it’s just not great to send as an email attachment.

    “Just HTML” can support just about any interactivity imaginable, in every browser (and elsewhere) without a plugin. Which is what I was asserting. Whereas, PDF cannot.

    I didn’t say PDF was bad for emailing or archiving, etc– just that its interactivity is limited to hyperlinks, which doesn’t merit the term “interactive” even by PDF’s standards.

    I’m still happy to just agree to disagree, but I think it’s important to know what each format supports and what it doesn’t.

    I don’t think we disagree about the content of the article, perhaps just the title.

  • February 3, 2021 at 1:05 pm #14335778
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    You are absolutely right: We agree on just about everything except the title of your article. And I do not begrudge you that, because one must always take article titles with a grain of salt! It’s the internet!

    You don’t call onscreen PDFs “interactive” because they don’t have animations, buttons, audio and video. I get that. I do call them “interactive” because people interact with them.

    Do I want all the interactivity that I could have with HTML?! Of course! I’ve been pushing Adobe and other people on the PDF standards bodies for years about this. It’s crazy how limited PDF is. But it’s not dead. ;-)

  • February 3, 2021 at 1:42 pm #14335780
    Justin Putney

    Member

    Yes, PDF is alive and well.

    My claim is that “Interactive PDF” (and only Interactive PDF) is dead by virtue of not being interactive. This happened in multiple ways, 1) The loss of Flash, 2) the proliferation of non-Adobe readers (which is good for PDF in general, but bad for interactive PDF), and 3) not supporting many of the interactive features from InDesign in the first place (animation, MSOs, etc).

    PDFs are arguably viewed on screens now more than printed, so PDFs certainly have life on screen.

    Long live PDF…only let’s not pretend it’s interactive…because it confuses people when the export from InDesign and send files to clients. :-)

    So I stand by the title, I don’t believe it’s a bait-and-switch. The entire articles works support the claim in the title.

    The standard of the article uses “dead” as “no longer useful in the way it’s defined” (the way “dead” in software is synonymous with “broken” and “unmaintained”) rather than “non-existent.”

  • February 3, 2021 at 2:00 pm #14335786
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    Well, I’m a word guy, first and foremost, so I go back to “interactive” simply meaning “it’s something we interact with.” But to a certain degree, that means a printed book is interactive! How about we put it on a spectrum, or range from 1 to 10 — A book is 1, a PDF is about a 4, and HTML is about 8. (HTML plus plug-ins/add-ons take it to 9 or 10… for example, AR/VR, etc.)

    And I agree there’s no bait-and-switch, Justin. I didn’t mean to imply that when I said “click bait.” Click bait is like what we were playing with on these articles:

    Drop 20 Pounds with InDesign

    
    and
    https://creativepro.com/i-thought-an-indesign-conference-would-be-boring-and-then-this-happened/

  • February 3, 2021 at 2:40 pm #14335787
    Justin Putney

    Member

    David, I appreciate the clarification on use of the term “click bait.”

    If the definition for “interactive” is that the format can be interacted with by being viewed on screen, then every digital format is interactive, even a print PDF (even .txt files).

    If the definition is that broad, it strikes me as meaningless.

    I would define interactive as engagement through tools, so for me it’s about whether those tools exist and work as expected (below I list the interactive tools available in InDesign).

    Also, I would also differentiate between what I think, and what a typical user would expect.

    If someone can do the following in InDesign…

    • Add video
    • Add audio
    • Create animation
    • Create Object States
    • Embed HTML
    • Create Alternate Layouts
    • Make a Liquid Layout
    • Add Buttons to control audio/video, trigger animation, change object states, etc
    • Add Hyperlinks

    …then they have an export option called Adobe PDF (Interactive)…

    What should they reasonably expect when they add those add those items to their document and export with that option?

    What happens if some of those things work when they open the file on their PDF reader, but dont’ work when their client opens the PDF in their reader?

    If 95% of the interactive stuff doesn’t work, should it still be called “interactive”?

    That’s where I’m coming from. I’m trying to help explain why the result of exporting an interactive PDF from InDesign is so disappointing, and to provide other options for interactivity (and I happen to make an option).

    Rather than trying to redefine “interactive” so that it still fits, I’m asking what someone expects when a format has “interactive” in the name (and has a previous history of supporting more interactivity than it currently does).

    If I was pitching my product as a great interactive tool in 2021…and all it supported were hyperlinks…I would be in trouble, and I don’t think, “well you can view it on a screen” would convince many people. Though maybe I’d get a 4/10 from a generous soul like yourself. ;-)

  • February 4, 2021 at 8:12 am #14335809
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    You make excellent points, Justin! I still think Interactive PDF has its place. It’s just not nearly as interactive as any of us want.

    10+ years ago, we all assumed that there would be a single format that can do it all—full interactivity (all the stuff you mention), and be a document, and be easily distributed or sold. It’s almost inconceivable that we’re now in the 3rd decade of the 21st century and nothing like that exists. FXL (fixed layout epub) comes close in some ways (it’s based on html, after all), but fails in others. But PDF is the biggest disappointment, for sure.

    As you know, back in 2017, there was some hubbub about “Camelot 2”, which I wrote about in this article. But it still hasn’t seen the light of day, and may never. Sigh.

  • February 4, 2021 at 9:15 am #14335815
    Justin Putney

    Member

    You’ve been one of the best advocates, for sure.

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