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It's such a nicely put and reasonable request I wish I could help. But I can't. Just a note, Acrobat 8 is light years beyond 7. But quickly frankly, I'd ask Adobe. They might like the idea.

Gerald

Thanks, Gerald.

I wish I could help too. I'd definitely use the Acrobat Forums. If you do get an answer could you share the link to the discussion?

Not sure if this helps, but why not just make it a web site? There are some neat features in PDFs, but I find that they're usually not user friendly anyways.

> I’m using Acrobat 7 Professional.

Windows or Mac? Windows only -- Acrobat 7 for windows also includes LiveCycle Designer;

Creating a button field: Tools -> Advanced Editing -> Show Forms Toolbar.

Piece of cake. The trick is that the button has to have multiple actions:

1. Before adding the button, set up the PDF file to open full screen.

2. After you create and format the button and have the Button Properties dialog open, click on the Actions tab.

3. Under Add an Action > Select Trigger, Mouse Up is generally fine. The Acrobat help file explains the other trigger options.

4. Under Add an Action > Select Action, choose Execute a menu item. Click the Add… button.

5. Under Actions, you should now have a little tree diagram. In the tree, highlight Execute a menu item and then click Edit.

6. In the Menu Item Selection dialog, select View > Full Screen. (Since the document is in full screen mode, this switches it to page layout. Note that once the file is in page layout mode, clicking this button again will put in back into full screen mode). Click OK.

7. Repeat steps 4 and 5 to add another Execute a menu item line to the action tree and open it for editing.

8. In the Menu Item Selection dialog, select View > Navigation Tabs > Bookmarks. Click OK.

9. If you want the user to be sent to another page, repeat steps 4 and 5. In the Menu Item Selection dialog, select View > Go To and choose an option. Click OK.

10. In the Button Properties dialog, click Close.

11. Save the PDF file and then test it in Adobe Reader to make sure it works.

You can rearrange the sequence in which the menu items are executed by moving lines up or down in the Actions tree, but different sequences may not give the same results.

To create a button that closes the file, follow steps 2 through 5, and then in the Menu Item Selection dialog, select File > Close.

Gus, you're amazing! Thanks! I'd all but given up hope. I'll try this out and get back to you. Thanks a million!

It worked, Gus. Thanks! Do you know how to make the PDF open automatically when the CD is inserted in the computer?

Don't people generally hate it when programs launch automatically when they insert a CD into a computer?

I think those of us that know how to use the software hate things happening automatically. But, some people would rather have it done for them.

Yes, I agree - I would personally hate it. But my client wants it that way - I guess he's covering all his bases.

Sorry about not getting back to you sooner, but I've been fighting bronchitis and was pretty much bedridden all weekend.

>Do you know how to make the PDF open automatically when the CD is inserted in the computer?

Uh oh. Fasten your seat belts, boys. I do, but only on Windows, not Mac or Linux. In fact, I’ve heard that OS X no longer supports what used to be called AutoStart on Macs. If you need to create a CD that will automatically play under both Windows and Mac, you’ll need a Mac guru.

What you want is AutoPlay (WinXP and Vista) or AutoRun (Windows 95 through Win2K). However, there are so many variables and exceptions and special cases (I have 25 pages of notes on autorun) that it’s impossible to guarantee that a CD will autorun on every possible platform without getting into modifying the user’s registry or running weird scripts. I don’t think that’s ethical to do to unsuspecting users. Also, as you can see from Miss Tiffany’s posts, autorun annoys a lot of people, so WinXP and Vista allow the user to disable AutoPlay via the “take no action” option in the Autoplay dialog that pops up when you load a new type of CD or DVD. The bottom line is that your client is going to have to accept that the CD may not work 100% of the time.

Since there are so many possibilities, I’m just going to outline a basic procedure that should work in most cases.

1. Copy the following two lines to your favorite text editor or word processor and save the file as a plain text file named autorun.inf:

[autorun]
shellexecute=yourfilename.pdf

2. Burn the autorun.inf file and your PDF to the root of CD.

3. Cross your fingers and test the CD on as many different machines as you can.

The meaning of the lines in autorun.inf:

[autorun]
This must be the first line and must have the brackets.

shellexecute=yourfilename.pdf
This line tells WinMe, WinNT 5.x, Win2K, WinXP, and Vista to launch the file named yourfilename.pdf. It uses the registered file associations to figure out which application to use. Change yourfilename to the name of your PDF file. If the PDF filename has spaces in it, enclose it in double quotes, like this: “Your Clients File.pdf”.

If you think your audience might be using Win95 or Win98, add the following line:

open=acrord32.exe yourfilename.pdf

This line tells Win95 and Win98 to launch Adobe Reader and passes Reader the filename yourfilename.pdf. Again, change yourfilename to the name of your PDF and use double quotes if needed. (Actually, shellexecute will work on Win9x systems if they have Microsoft Layer for Unicode installed. You see what I mean about too many special cases and exceptions?)

So, to cover Win95 through Vista, your autorun.inf would look like this:

[autorun]
shellexecute=yourfilename.pdf
open=acrord32.exe yourfilename.pdf

If for some reason the PDF file must be in a subfolder, not the root of the CD, you can use relative paths on the shellexecute= and open= lines, like this (but the autorun.inf file must always be in the root):

shellexecute=\mysubfolder\yourfilename.pdf
shellexecute=“\my sub folder\your file name.pdf”

open=acrord32.exe \mysubfolder\yourfilename.pdf
open=acrord32.exe “\my sub folder\your file name.pdf”

On the open= line, you can suppress the Reader splash screen by using the /s switch:

open=acrord32.exe /s yourfilename.pdf

There are two optional lines you can include in autorun.inf. They are icon= and label=.

If you have a Windows icon file (.ico) that you want to display for the CD in Windows Explorer or My Computer, use this:

icon=youricon.ico

If you want a text label to appear for the CD in Windows Explorer or My Computer (but it probably won't work on Win95 or Win98), use this:

label=Your CD name

Your CD name can be anything you want, and it can have spaces without needing double quotes around it.

You can use icon= and label= together, individually, or not at all. Using all the commands, your autorun.inf would look like this:

[autorun]
shellexecute=yourfilename.pdf
open=acrord32.exe /s yourfilename.pdf
icon=youricon.ico
label=Your CD name

Good luck…

I knew I shouldn't have gotten out of bed while my O2 sat was low. The open=acrord32.exe line doesn't work on Win9x. What it does is try to open the Reader from the CD, but of course the executable isn't there. The good news is that the buttons in the PDF file worked in Reader version 4.1.

Without the open= line, your autorun.inf would be:

[autorun]
shellexecute=yourfilename.pdf

or:

[autorun]
shellexecute=yourfilename.pdf
icon=youricon.ico

or:

[autorun]
shellexecute=yourfilename.pdf
icon=youricon.ico
label=Your CD name

It is possible to put the Reader on the CD, but the files you need vary depend on which version of the Reader you want to use, and I'm not sure that Adobe approves. The best way to open the PDF file in Win9x is to use a small freeware launcher program. Rather than bore everyone with the details of that, though, I'll wait and see if you post here saying you do need to cover Windows 95 and 98.

Thank you, Gus. You are a font of knowledge.