March 2006

Tooling Around by Gloria McConnell

Adding Interactivity to PDF Files

For better PDF files for the Web, as forms, or just online reading, Adobe Acrobat® 7 has added several mouse actions for buttons. Acrobat can create a simple button for you (a rectangle or square), or you can use button artwork, such as those above. Either way, you can  add actions for your buttons based on various mouse-action “triggers,”  including:

  • Mouse Up: Click and release the mouse button (the default action)
  • Mouse Down:  Click and hold the mouse button down
  • Mouse Enter: Move the pointer over a button
  • Mouse Exit: Remove the pointer from a button
  • On Blur and On Focus: For form fields
  • Page Visible/Invisible: For media clips

The actions your button can initiate are many, including all of those shown in the adjacent figure.

Procedure

How to add a button? Follow these steps (for Acrobat in the Windows environment):

  1. Create and save a PDF file that includes button artwork, or a specific place where you want an Acrobat button. (I found that for a graphic button, having the graphic in the file yielded better results than selecting it as an icon from within the Acrobat file.)
  2. Open the file in Acrobat Professional 7 or later.
  3. From the Tools menu, choose Advanced Editing > Button Tool. The pointer changes to crosshairs, .
  4. Create a button shape, or draw an outline (rectangular or square) around your button image.
  5. Double-click the button. Complete the Button Properties dialog box (all four tabs):

If you want a label to appear on your button, here’s a tip: the label is not taken from the Name field on the General tab; it is defined on the Options tab.

Another tip: If you are placing the Acrobat button over a button graphic in your file, you will need to make the Acrobat button transparent. On the Appearance tab, click the Border Color button and choose No Color. Ditto for the Fill Color.

I won’t go into any more detail here—what’s the fun in that? I’ll leave it to you to explore, experiment, and read Acrobat’s online Help! Another fine reference is an article on the Adobe Web site  by Donna Baker, Button up your PDF files.

Happy PDF-ing

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