Creating Page Actions

One underused feature of the PDF format is the ability to set page actions. Most people simply create PDF files that are on-screen versions of the print document ‚ static representations ‚ but PDF files can include forms, buttons , and other interactive elements. One reason for the underuse of page actions is that few tools let you create the placeholder items for them, and adding them in Acrobat Standard or Acrobat Professional is awkward ‚ they really work best when created in the program that creates the whole document. InDesign CS addresses this reality with its enhanced support for interactive features.

In InDesign, you use the States pane to create buttons and other objects that have actions associated with them.

The first thing you do is draw a button, using the Button tool. A button is essentially a rectangular frame. Once created, you can resize it like any other object, though you cannot create nonrectangular shapes .

New Feature ‚  

The Button tool and the ability to create rollovers (covered later in this section) are new to InDesign CS.

Tip ‚  

You can convert an existing frame to a button by choosing Object ‚ Interactive ‚ Convert to Button.

After you create the button shape, you should immediately choose its appearance, using the Appearance pop-up menu in the States pane (Windows ‚ Interactive ‚ States). It's imperative that you choose the appearance now, because if you later change the appearance, any actions you associate to the button are wiped out. If you want a transparent button (perhaps to make part of an existing graphic a hot spot), choose None from the pop-up menu. The other options are Drop Shadow, Glow, Bevel, and Custom. Figure 33-5 shows the States pane, the three standard states (Up, Rollover, and Down), and an example button (at lower-left).

Figure 33-5: The States pane and an example button.

Then you create the states for the button by choosing New State from the States pane's palette menu. You always have an Up state when you create a button. You'll get a Rollover state the first time you choose New States and a Down state the second time. You can have only these three states for any button.

The states correspond to mouse actions:

• Up is what is displayed and occurs when the mouse is not over the button ‚ the default appearance and action.

• Rollover is what displays and occurs when the mouse passes over the button but the mouse is not clicked onto the button.

• Down is what displays and occurs when the mouse clicks the button.

You can disable or enable any state by unchecking or checking the check box to its left in the pane. You can also select a state in the pane and choose State Options from the palette menu to disable or enable the state.

If you want to create a custom appearance for any state, select the state and choose Place Content into State from the palette menu. You will then be provided a Place dialog box from which to choose a picture file. You can crop, resize, and otherwise manipulate the picture as you would any picture in a frame. (Note how the Appearance pop-up menu changes to Custom when you do this.) To remove placed content, choose Delete Content from State.

Now comes the fun part: associating the action with the button. To do so, choose Button Options from the palette menu. You'll get the Button Options dialog box shown in Figure 33-6, which defaults to the General pane. In this pane, you provide a name for the button and set the button's visibility in the PDF file you'll later export. The options are self-explanatory: Visible, Hidden, Visible But Doesn't Print, and Hidden But Printable.

Figure 33-6: The Button Options dialog box and its Behaviors pane.

The real action association happens in the Behaviors pane, shown in Figure 33-6. Here, you first select the event that triggers the action, using the Events pop-up menu:

• Mouse Up is when you release the mouse after clicking the button.

• Mouse Down is when you click the mouse button.

• Mouse Enter is when you move the mouse pointer over the button.

• Mouse Exit is when you move the mouse pointer away from the button after first passing over it.

• On Focus is when you tab into a form field (since a form field is simply a button, this is similar to Mouse Enter except that it detects keyboard access to the button).

• On Blur is when you tab out of a form field (since a form field is simply a button, this is similar to Mouse Exit except that it detects keyboard departure from the button).

  Note ‚  

  You may wonder what happens if you've selected a specific state before opening the Button Options dialog box. Nothing. It doesn't matter which state is selected in the pane ‚ these are simply previews of the button's appearance based on the mouse status ‚ since the behaviors selected in the Button Options menu affect the button as a whole.

You then choose the action in the Behavior pop-up menu. Most are self-explanatory: Close, Exit, Go to First Page, Go to Last Page, Go to Next Page, Go to Preview Page, Go to Preview View, Go to Anchor, Go to URL, Move, Open File, Sound, and View Zoom. Some of these ‚ Go to Anchor, Go to URL, Movie, Sound, Open File, and View Zoom will cause other pop-up menus and fields to display in the palette to select a file to open or a hyperlink or anchor to jump to.

The Show/Hide Fields option is meant for Acrobat forms. InDesign will consider every button to be a form field and will provide a list of all buttons if you select this option. You can then decide which buttons (form entry fields in this case) display on the mouse action ‚ you would have only those display that you want to be used as form-entry fields. (To specify the order in which a reader tabs through form fields [buttons], select the fields in the form, then choose Object ‚ Interactive ‚ Set Tab Order, which opens a dialog box in which you can sort the buttons in the order that you want the reader to move through as he or she press the Tab key.)

Click Add to add a behavior to this state. You can add multiple behaviors to each state. And each Event can have multiple behaviors ‚ just select a new Behavior then click Add for each one.