Adobe Community: Interactive buttons show with a square box around them...

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1. Willi Adelberger,

Mar 8, 2013 8:50 AM in reply to pchinique

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Buttons in PDF can have only rectangle forms, circle don't exist. I suppose that in the second case buttons are marked as form elements.

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2. pchinique,

Mar 8, 2013 10:30 AM in reply to Willi Adelberger

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Thank you Willi,

The thing is I didn't used Acrobat to create these buttons, I use Adobe Indesign, and saved the document as interactive pdf. InDesign also offers a library of buttons that are all sort of different shapes, including circles. I have also seen interactive documents and e-books that use all kind of interactive buttons with different shapes.

Is there a work around for this issue?

Thanks,

Trish

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3. Petteri_Paananen,

Mar 8, 2013 10:56 AM in reply to pchinique

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I think problem is PDF reader software (or plugin) you are using with your webbrowser. It does not support buttons (or has weird support)

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4. Willi Adelberger,

Mar 8, 2013 11:17 AM in reply to pchinique

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Buttons in PDFs are always rectangles. Doesn't matter where the PDF comes from, no viewer can influence it.

Buttons in PDFs are rectanles. No discussion.

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5. Petteri_Paananen,

Mar 8, 2013 11:37 AM in reply to Willi Adelberger

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You can use custom icons as a visible part of button. Adobe Reader, Acrobat and Mac Previes for instance can show custom icons properly. A circle shaped button as circle etc. You can choose custom icon in Acrobat and I think if you add button in InDesign, it will be done as a custom icon.

If I understood correctly those 2 PDFs in first post are actually same file. First one is opened to Acrobat, second one is opened in web-browser with some other reader/plugin...

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6. Willi Adelberger,

Mar 8, 2013 12:35 PM in reply to Petteri_Paananen

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http://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/interactivity-5.html

The clickable area, or hot spot, of the button is the square bounding box of the largest state in the button. For example, a round button has a square hot spot.

The Hotspot is a rectangle.

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7. Steve Werner,

Mar 8, 2013 12:41 PM in reply to Willi Adelberger

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Willi is correct. Hotspots are always a rectangle.

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8. Petteri_Paananen,

Mar 8, 2013 1:17 PM in reply to Steve Werner

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Yes I know that button field itself is rectangle but I don´t think it´s the point here. Question is rather about visible part of the button. Some readers show visible part (icon) correctly and some others don´t. OP has opened same file in two different reader, one shows it correctly, another doesn´t.

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9. Willi Adelberger,

Mar 8, 2013 1:20 PM in reply to Petteri_Paananen

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Oh yes, this is the problem. What the TE asks is why are the rectangles around the round buttons. And these rectangles are the visible hotspots. If he hides the hotspots only the graphical representation of the buttons will be visible.

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10. Petteri_Paananen,

Mar 8, 2013 1:38 PM in reply to Willi Adelberger

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How come those rectangles are not visible when PDF is opened with Adobe Reader or Acrobat (or what ever reader was used with first screenshot)?

I understood original question so that rectangles were invisible with one reader (probably Adobe Reader or Acrobat) and visible with web-browser (OP didn´t mention which plugin was used, but I don´t think it was Adobe Reader or Acrobat based on the difference between those 2 pictures... but I may be wrong... maybe OP can tell us more about the readers/plugins used in those screenshots.)

My guess is still that first screenshot has been taken from Adobe Reader or Acrobat, and second screenshot has been taken from some PDF reader plugin that doesn´t support button icons same way Adobe´s softwares does.

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11. pchinique,

Mar 8, 2013 2:23 PM in reply to Petteri_Paananen

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Thank you all for your answers.

Petteri, yes the first screen shot comes from a pdf that was opened with Adobe Reader, same result when I opened it with Adobe Acrobat. No the second screen shot was taking after uploading the pdf to the server and previewing it in the browser, Google Chrome, IE and Firefox gave me the same preview.

I guess my question now, after reading your answers will be, is there a way to hide the hotspots without hidding the rounded buttons and keeping functionality of the button intact?

Thanks,

Trish

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12. Willi Adelberger,

Mar 8, 2013 5:36 PM in reply to pchinique

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If there is a setting than you as a producer of the pdf will not have any influence on it. These settings are done by the one who is using that program not from the producer of the pdf. Don't waste any energy in changing it, you can't do it.

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13. Petteri_Paananen,

Mar 8, 2013 9:39 PM in reply to pchinique

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Thats a problem with interactive PDF format. Different readers, plugins, extensions etc supports interactivity differently. And you as a publisher can´t influence how your users will see your PDFs. Only Adobe Reader and Acrobat have a full support for interactive features.

Flash format can handle that sort of things way better.. check for instance this example:

http://www.godcgo.com/Portals/0/GettingAroundguide/index.html

Whole content of that interactive guide has been produced with InDesign, but instead of exporting it as Interactive PDF it has been exported as SWF and finalized with product called eDocker*.

As you can see, there´s lots of differently shaped buttons and they work as they should - in all browsers.

I know that all designers don´t want to use flash because it doesn´t work in mobile devices, but IMO if target audience is using computers and you are using InDesign for ceating your interactive publication, Flash/SWF is very good way to deliver it to end-users. Small con is that InDesign´s own SWF export is not very good alone, you can´t make ready-to-use stuff with it without using 3rd party tools like eDocker or at least forking the code InDesign produces.

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14. Steve Werner,

Mar 9, 2013 5:34 AM in reply to Petteri_Paananen

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I just taught an Advanced InDesign class yesterday that included a couple hour survey of digital publishing. I have a handout that lays out the advantages and disadvantages of each of the four popular ways to go—interactive PDF, SWF, EPUB or tablet apps. It's important to realize you have to figure out what your audience is and use the best method available, but acknowledge the limitations of each of the methods.

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Interactive buttons show with a square box around them...

Mar 8, 2013 8:15 AM

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