Saturday, June 14, 2003

Enhanced PDF

First time users of Adobe Acrobat don’t think of it as a ‘multimedia authoring’ tool, because, open it up and nothing appears! No blank page on which draw or create is presented. No tool bar with objects to be dragged onto the screen is available.

To use Acrobat, a PDF needs to be created in some other application first. Could be Microsoft Word or Adobe Illustrator, or, my preference, InDesign.

Once we have the PDF, what can we do beyond basic ‘page turning’?

Acrobat can easily deliver multiple page PDF documents with its built-in forward, backwards, and return icons. The PDF format, however, can be enhanced to include much more:

furthermore...

Delivery Choices Right off, you need to make some decisions about design. The Acrobat interface includes the basic navigation tools (forward, backwards etc), so you may decide that you happy for your users to be content with those. You may decide, however, that you wish to show the PDF 'full screen', in which case, you need to provide some navigation items within the 'content space'. As I say, Acrobat doesn't have a wealth of drawing tools, so you can create these interactive features (buttons, arrows etc.) in say InDesign and then use Acrobat to create 'invisible' buttons over the top of these elements. Eventually, the PDF can be saved so as to open 'full screen', if you wish to restrict the users to use your custom navigation. Creating interactive components on the PDF page can be achieved with two main tools; the link tool and the form tool. The latter is more powerful, because actions can be based on 'mouse up', 'mouse down', 'mouse enter', 'mouse exit', 'on focus', and 'on blur'. It is also possible to put repeating interactive elements with the form tool, that is, you can duplicate items over a long document.JavascriptAcrobat includes a very powerful javascript programming language and code can be attached to buttons, text fields, pages (when opened or closed) or even when documents themselves are opened. Here is an example: // Javascript for opening page // // check to see what version of Acrobat is running // var version = app.viewerVersion; if (version >= 5) // only do this if 5 or greater // { else app.alert("This application needs to run with Acrobat 5.0 or higher. Please install from the CDROM.",3); } Another example: Drop down Menu Drop down menus are possible using the javascript language with 'app.popUpMenu':// display the menu // var navigateto = app.popUpMenu("destination1",// "destination2","destination3",// "destination4"); //end of display the menu // // now check to see what was selected // if (navigateto == "destination1") gotoNamedDest("destination1"); if (navigateto == "destination2") gotoNamedDest("destination2"); if (navigateto == "destination3") gotoNamedDest("destination3"); if (navigateto == "destination4") gotoNamedDest("destination4"); Destinations for each page or view to be navigated to, will need to be created through the 'destinations' palette. This is found on the 'window' menu. 'Scan the document' first and then you can make new destinations. The drop down menu system outlined above depends on named destinations that match the menu names. Here is a view if the destinations palette:QuickTime As I write this article, Acrobat version 6.0 has just become available, and so, some of the features described here may well be further enhanced! Acrobat can 'add' QuickTime movies to the PDF. The movie is not embedded in the PDF but rather a link to the file is made. When there is an intention to deliver the PDF on the web then then it is better to upload the movie to the web and make the link a full URL, otherwise the PDF and its 'attached' movies will need to be packaged as a zip file for 'unpacking' on the end user's computer. To ensure that the ePDF will work on MAC and PC then the QuickTime movies will need to be 'flattened'. Placing a QuickTime movie on the page of a PDF requires these steps: Consider the design of the page; leave a space for the movie! In Acrobat, use the movie icon on the tools palette and 'draw' a box to represent the position of the movie. This can be changed later. You will be asked via a dialogue box for a location for the movie. You can decide through this dialogue box whether the movie plays and repeats or just plays and stops. Experiment!TipTo get the movie to play when the page opens use 'Document > Set page Action' and set the selected movie to play.