Adobe Reader offers several ways for you to play interactive content contained in PDF files. You can view PDFs you find on the Web from within your Web browser. You can also play a PDF file's sound and video clips either in Adobe Reader itself or in your browser.
When Acrobat Standard or Professional users create PDF documents derived from Web pages that contain Flash animation, the resulting PDF documents play the animation sequences. Once opened in Adobe Reader, the animation plays much the way it does when you view the files on the Web.
Whenever you locate a PDF document on the Web, you have two ways to view the file. You can view it in Adobe Reader or in your Web browser. For Web browser viewing, you need to have Adobe Reader installed on your computer.
To set the way you view PDFs on Web sites:
Open Adobe Reader and press Ctrl/Command+K to open the Preferences dialog.
Click Internet in the left pane. The Internet preferences (Figure 16.1) provide attribute settings for choosing the way you want to view PDF files hosted on the Internet, along with some settings related to file-downloading speed.
Check the box for Display PDF in browser. When the box is checked, all PDFs you view on the Web are displayed inside the Web browser window.
Check the boxes for Allow fast web view and Allow speculative downloading in the background. These options provide you with the fastest viewing of PDF pages. Rather than the entire PDF document downloading at once, pages are downloaded as you view them, so the pages appear in the Document pane much faster.
Select your connection speed from the Connection speed pull-down menu. Click OK to accept any new changes made in the Preferences.
Open your default Web browser and navigate to a URL containing a PDF document.
Note
Viewing PDFs in Web browser windows does not require you to launch Adobe Reader. You can either keep Adobe Reader open or quit it to access PDFs on the Internet from your Web browser.
Tip
If you don't know the URL where a PDF is located, open the Search window and select Search the internet using Yahoo!. Check the Search only in PDF files checkbox. The returned results report only PDF documents. Click any link and a PDF opens in your Web browser. Alternatively, you can visit www.peachpit/adobereader7/TutorialFiles and click on any PDF to open the file in your Web browser.
When the PDF opens in your browser, Adobe Reader tools, navigation tabs, and Status Bar items appear within the browser window. You can use Adobe Reader tools to navigate pages and alter zoom views, and you can also take advantage of the tools at the top of the Document pane and the tabs nested in the Navigation pane. Viewing PDF files inside the browser window is referred to as inline viewing.
Open a context menu on the Toolbar Well. All the toolbars are listed in the menu (Figure 16.2).
Click the right arrow at the top of the right scroll bar to open a fly-out menu. The menu options shown in Figure 16.3 include access to the Document Properties, Document Status, and Preferences, as well as a command to Reset Toolbars.
Click the Save a Copy tool in the top-left portion of the browser window. The Save a Copy dialog opens. Navigate your hard drive and save the file to a folder.
Anyone who's spent more than 10 minutes using an email program is certainly aware of how to send file attachments with email messages. It isn't a complicated matter and you're probably wondering why this chapter even raises the topic.
Apart from using your own email program, you can use Adobe Reader's various options for emailing files. There are some benefits and some restrictions with emailing files from within Adobe Reader. You can email files from within Adobe Reader and email PDFs while viewing documents as inline views in Web browsers.
While viewing PDFs in Adobe Reader, you can use the Email tool in the Reader Toolbar Well to launch your default email program and send the active file in the Reader Document pane as an email attachment. This method has limitations, however, depending on the type of PDF file you attempt to email.
To email PDFs from within Adobe Reader:
Open any PDF document you have stored on your hard drive.
Click the Email tool in the Adobe Reader Toolbar Well. Or select File > Email.
Your default email application opens and the current PDF file in view in Adobe Reader is attached to a new email message (Figure 16.4). Add a recipient address and type a message in the window.
Send the email. If your email program is not set to auto-send files, you may need to open your email program and use a button or menu command to send the message. Click Send and the file is emailed to the recipient(s).
Open the file eSupportForm.pdf file you downloaded from www.peachpit.com/adobereader7.
Click the Email tool in the Adobe Reader toolbar.
This document is a PDF form. When you email PDF forms, an alert dialog opens (Figure 16.5). The dialog informs you that only a blank copy of your document can be sent via email. Any data you may have added to the form is not included in the email copy.
If you want to email a blank copy, click Email a Blank Copy. Or click Cancel to return to Adobe Reader without emailing the form.
If you try to email a PDF form, a warning dialog opens (Figure 16.6). As an Adobe Reader user, you can't send form data using the Email tool. If you use the Email tool, PDFs are emailed without any associated form data.
Figure 16.6. When you email a PDF form as an Adobe Reader user, you can send only a blank copy of the form.
PDF authors can, however, create Submit buttons on PDF forms that initiate an email procedure and can include form data with the email message. Emailing form data via a Submit button does permit the Adobe Reader user to send form data. Be aware that there is a distinction between using the Email tool and using a button on a form designed to submit form data. The discretion for allowing the emailing of form data is entirely in the hands of PDF authors.
If you want to email a PDF when viewing files in a Web browser, you can use either Reader tools for emailing or tools or commands from within your Web browser.
To email PDFs from within a Web browser:
Launch your default Web browser. If using Microsoft Internet Explorer, select File > Open. If using Apple Safari, select File > Open File. The Open dialog appears with either browser.
Navigate your hard drive and select the eSupportForm.pdf document. Click Open to open the document in the browser window.
Fill in the form data fields. Click a form field using the Hand tool. The Sending Data Files by Email dialog opens informing you that the form contains an email submit button you can use to submit data, but you cannot save form data. Click Close in the dialog box and fill in the form fields.
Click the Email tool below the browser's Address bar.
The Email a Blank Copy of this Form dialog (Figure 16.7) opens again. Note that even within the Web browser, you cannot send form data using the email tool.
Click Email a Blank Copy.
Your default email program opens with the PDF attached to a new email message. Fill in the To field with your own email address and initiate a send.
Retrieve your email. Open the attached PDF document in Adobe Reader. The PDF form opens in Reader and all the form fields contain the original data before you edited the form.
Is there a workaround I can use to save form data?
Macintosh users can create a workaround without acquiring any additional software. Windows users need a PDF creation tool to create a similar workaround. On the Macintosh, or on Windows using a tool to create PDF files via the Print command (see Appendix A for more information on PDF creation tools), open a form in Adobe Reader or your Web browser. Fill in the form fields. This workaround works when viewing files in either Adobe Reader or your Web browser.
Select File > Print. Select a PostScript printer. Be certain to select a printer that is PostScript or PostScript compatible, or your resultant PDF may not be recognized by Adobe Reader.
On the Macintosh, select Output Options from the pull-down menu below the Presets pull-down menu as shown in Figure 16.8. Check the Save as File box and select PDF from the Format pull-down menu. Click the Save button.
A new PDF is created preserving all the form field data you typed on the form. Note that the file is no longer a form. When you create a new PDF file from the Print dialog box, the form fields are discarded but the data are retained in the new document.
PDF authors can use two different compatibility methods to add sound and media to PDF files. Using Acrobat 5 (and earlier) compatibility, PDF authors import sound and video clips that can be seen by users of all Acrobat viewers. When video clips are added to PDF files, the video clips are not embedded in PDF documents. They remain as file links and require you to have both the PDF document and the video file stored on your hard drive, CD-ROM, or Web site. All sound files imported as Acrobat 5–compatible media are embedded in PDFs.
When Acrobat 6 (and later) compatibility is used, users of Acrobat 6 and later viewers can play sound and video, but users of viewers prior to Acrobat 6 can't if the media is embedded in the PDF. PDF authors using Acrobat 6 (and later) compatibility can choose to either embed sounds and video or create file links that require the sound and video files to be stored separately from the PDF files.
Note
No files containing media clips exist at www.peachpit.com/adobereader7. To play media clips in Adobe Reader you need to acquire files with imported video. A good example of a file with a media clip is the tour_flash.pdf file developed by Adobe Systems. To acquire the file, launch your Web browser and open the following URL: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/pdfs/acrobat7_tour_flash.pdf
Before viewing PDF files with media clips, be sure to access the Preferences dialog to view the choices you have available for multimedia viewing.
To select options for multimedia viewing:
Press Ctrl/Command+K to open the Preferences dialog.
Click Multimedia in the left pane.
Open the pull-down menu for Preferred Media Player (Figure 16.9). Choose a media player of choice from the menu options. In Windows the default player is Windows Built-In Player; on the Macintosh the default player is QuickTime. If you're not certain which player to choose, leave the menu selection at the default.
If you're not working with accessible files and if you're not using a screen reader, ignore the check boxes in the Multimedia preferences. If you use a screen reader, check all the boxes. Language selection also applies to accessible files. Select your preferred language from the Preferred language for content pull-down menu.
Click OK and the Preferences options remain for all future Adobe Reader sessions.
PDF authors can add video and sound to documents, and they also have options for auto-playing media or allowing users to click buttons to play media. You may find PDF documents where a sound file begins playing when a document opens. You can't turn off the sound unless either you close the file or a PDF author has added a button to stop the play.
If you open PDF documents containing media and see descriptive buttons that allow playing, pausing, and stopping media clips, you can use those buttons to start, pause, and stop the media clips. In some cases, you may find PDF documents without buttons, where the media clip itself is a button to start the play. Furthermore, you may or may not see controls on media clips to start and stop the play action.
To play media clips in PDF files:
Open a PDF file containing a media clip. If you don't have such a file, use the tour_flash.pdf file that you can download from Adobe's Web site.
Figure 16.10 shows a PDF document that contains self-descriptive buttons for playing, pausing, and restarting the video. In this kind of document the PDF author has created buttons to control the media play.
In some documents, you may find media clips where no buttons exist to play the media. But when you move the Hand tool over a video clip, the video image appears as a button and the Hand tool icon changes to a Hand with an extended forefinger. Click the mouse and the video starts to play.
PDF authors may enable player controls when media clips are played. Figure 16.11 shows the player controls at the bottom of the floating video clip window. Click the controls that appear similar to a VCR player to start, stop, and resume play.
Press the Esc key when you want to stop video play for any media clip.
Animation sequences created in programs like Macromedia Flash can be played in Adobe Reader. PDF authors add Flash animation files much like they add media clips to PDFs. In addition, Web sites containing Flash animation can be captured by PDF authors and converted to PDF. As an Adobe Reader user, you can't add Flash animation to a PDF, nor can you convert Web pages to PDF with the Adobe Reader program. You can, however, play the animation when viewing PDFs in Adobe Reader.
When an Acrobat user converts Web pages to PDF, the URL links contained on the captured Web pages remain live and link to other Web pages. In Adobe Reader you can click a URL link and the linked destination opens in your Web browser.
Note
If you don't have a PDF containing a Flash animation, use the www.adobe.com.pdf you can download from www.peachpit.com/adobereader7.
To view captured Web pages with Flash animation:
Open a captured Web page. For this section you need to have a PDF document containing Flash animation. If you have no such file, download the www.adobe.com.pdf from the Peachpit Web site.
Click a link in the document. Figure 16.12 shows a Web page containing a Flash file that was captured in Acrobat. The PDF viewed in Adobe Reader plays the animation and supports URL links.
The destination link opens. If the link is to a Web site, your default Web browser opens and the destination page appears in the browser window (Figure 16.13).
