ust exporting your magazine as a PDF file to duplicate what could appear in print ignores all of the interactive capabilities available in a PDF and other programs. This can engage the reader and provide additional value. If you use Adobe’s InDesign to design publications, use these features to insert interactivity that exports readily to Adobe Acrobat.

Hyperlinks

1. Step 1

   Define story descriptions on the magazine’s contents page, then open the “Hyperlinks” panel and select “New Hyperlink.” In the new menu that appears, name the link. For “Type,” select “Page,” then enter the page number where the story appears.

2. Step 2

   Create a new layer from the “Layers” panel to place notes, sidebars and images that appear when the cursor rolls over a button. With the new layer selected, place text or graphic objects. Click on the “eye” box in the layers panel to toggle the visibility of the new layer and to allow editing of the main layer.

3. Step 3

   Select the text frame or graphic object you added to the new layer, and from the “Object” menu, select “Interactive/Convert to Button.” In the general button options menu, for “Visibility in PDF,” choose “Hidden.” Name the button, but you don’t need to choose any “Behaviors.”

4. Step 4

   Use the “Button Tool” to draw a new button, such as an invisible rectangle over a word or a phrase. In the “Behaviors” for the new button, choose “Mouse Up,” “Show/Hide Fields,” but don’t choose any button as fields to show. Click “Add.” This keeps the pop-up text or graphic hidden in normal view.

5. Step 5

   Add a second behavior, “Mouse Enter” and “Show/Hide Fields” for when the cursor rolls over the button. Then, select the name of the button you created on the new layer. Click on the empty box next to the name until the you see the eye image, then click “Add.”

6. Step 6

   Add a third behavior, then click “Mouse Exit.” Select the button from the new layer again, but this time click on the box next to the name until you see the eye with a red diagonal line across it. This hides the pop-up text or object. Click “Add,” then click “OK” to enable the behaviors.

7. Step 7

   Insert a movie or a sound file by choosing “File/Place,”and when the browser window opens, select the intended media file. Click on the document page where you want to place the file. You can also drag the file directly from the desktop to the page.

8. Step 8

   Double-click the media object on the page to set its options, such as specifying a poster image to display on the page when the movie is not running, and showing the controller during play.

9. Step 9

   Export pages individually as PDFs to test interactivity. Be sure “Bookmarks,” “Hyperlinks” and “Interactive Elements” are checked in the “Export” menu. For “Multimedia,” choose “Embed All” to include all of the media in one file, or “Link All” to link to files on an accessible server. Use the same settings to export the entire document when you’re ready to publish.