Section 92. Adding Movies and Sounds

#92. Adding Movies and Sounds

The idea of adding movies and sounds to a layout may seem a bit strange, especially if you were around in the early days of page layout software. It wasn't that long ago that page layout programs let you create only printed publications. InDesign has expanded the boundaries by letting you create interactive multimedia PDF files that combine the best of print publishingtext and graphicswith rich media and hyperlinks.

Adding movies and sound files to a layout is much the same as adding graphics. The easiest method is to choose File > Place, and then select a movie or sound file. InDesign supports QuickTime, AVI, MPEG, and SWF movie files and AIF, AU, and WAV sound files. You can also drag and drop a movie or sound file from Windows Explorer or the Mac OS Finder into an InDesign layout.

To control how a movie file is handled when you export a layout as PDF and how the movie is displayed and plays in the exported PDF document, select a frame that contains a movie, and then choose Object > Interactive > Movie Options.

• The controls in the Source area of the Movie Options dialog box (Figure 92a) let you choose a movie file or specify a URL for a Web site that plays a streaming media file if an Internet connection is available.

  Figure 92a. The Movie Options dialog box lets you specify a movie's source file and control how the movie is played when an Acrobat or Reader user views the PDF file.

  

• The controls in the Options area let you specify how the movie is displayed and how it plays in the PDF document.

• The Poster menu lets you choose the image that's displayed when the movie is not playing, and the Mode menu offers three choices for playing a movie: Play Once Then Stop, Play Once Stay Open, and Repeat Play.

Working with Movies

You must have QuickTime 6 or later installed on your computer to work with movies in InDesign. If you don't have QuickTime 6, you can download it for free from Apple's Web site (www.apple.com).

To control how the sound file is handled when you export the layout as PDF and how the sound frame is displayed and plays in the exported PDF document, select a frame that contains a sound, and then choose Object > Interactive > Sound Options. The controls in the Sound Options dialog box (Figure 92b) are a subset of those in the Movie Options dialog box.

Figure 92b. The Sound Options dialog box lets you control how a frame with a sound is displayed and how the sound file is handled when you export the layout as PDF.

Viewing Multimedia PDF Documents

If you intend to create multimedia PDF files with InDesign, keep in mind that Acrobat 6 or later is required to play MPEG and SWF movies in PDF documents. Acrobat 5 or later is required to play QuickTime and AVI movies.

When you export a layout that contains movies and sounds as PDF, you should export an Acrobat 6 (PDF 1.5) or Acrobat 7 (PDF 1.6) file, if possible. Acrobat 4 (PDF 1.3) and Acrobat 5 (PDF 1.4) files do not support all movie and sound features.

If you've included movies and sounds in an InDesign document, make sure you check Include Interactive Elements in the General panel of the Export Adobe PDF dialog box when you export the document as PDF. For information about exporting InDesign documents as PDF, see #95.