controlling Flash behavior using links in a PDF

Jacob Schäffer js at grafikhuset.dk
Thu Dec 10 11:56:02 PST 2009


Adobe InDesign can place SWF documents, i.e. compiled Flash movies, and
fully respect what happens inside the clipping region that contain the SWF
file. A very good helper is the free "PlaySWF" plug-in (search Google to
find it), which makes it easy to *place* SWF documents into .INDD documents
(I've only tested this with InDesign CS4), end then export to PDF with
interactive content *enabled*.

In this case the SWF part runs entirely inside Acrobat and fully support the
settings you define in PlaySWF and in Movie Properties in InDesign. I'm
unaware if Flash ActionScript (1, 2 or 3) can raise events you can monitor
from other sources (which is what you need to trigger timely LHS
high-lighting while the movie runs on the RHS part of the spread).

It would therefore be ideal if your Frameaker or InDesign document (after
compilation to PDF format) could listen to events fired by the Flash
content, but I can't find any documentation on this issue and assume that
event-handling and other callback functionality is an absolute no-go at
document level. Perhaps direct Java coding in-PDF can do something I'm
unaware of. I'm not a Java shark :-)

I'm afraid you need to create both the LHS and RHS parts directly in Flash,
unfortunately.

Best regards / Med venlig hilsen
Jacob Schäffer  |  Chief Developer
----------------------------------
Grafikhuset (House of Graphics)
Paradis Allé 22, Ramløse
DK-3200 Helsinge, Denmark
Phone: +45 4439 4400
Email: js at grafikhuset.dk
Web: www.grafikhuset.net




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