Pdfsfly

Making PDF Documents Fly

By Gabrielle Dara Krim

A White Paper from Integration New Media

Integration New Media, Inc.
1425 West René-Levesque Blvd.,
Suite 906
Montreal (Quebec) H3G 1T7
Canada
Tel.: +1 514 871-1333
Fax: +1 514 871 9251
www.IntegrationNewMedia.com


Current trends in PDF publishing

By now we all know the benefits of Portable Document Format (PDF) for
publishing content where layout and design are important – PDF is the best
format to use if you want to preserve fonts and colors of the original document.
PDF documents are scalable, render faithfully on all computer screens, and
print out exactly as they appear on screen. Not to mention the many design
and editing tools that automatically output to PDF format. This de facto standard
for publishing has been around for about 10 years and continues to grow
in popularity. Traditionally used within corporations, to distribute corporate
documents among employees, PDF is now one of the most common formats
for publishing information destined for public consumption, via the World Wide
Web. PDF documents can be found in areas as diverse as newspapers,
government, culinary arts, astronomy, etc.

However, not everyone is a PDF fan. Compared to web pages, PDF documents
are criticized for being too heavy and taking too long to load. They are often
associated with large amounts of uninterrupted text, which are difficult to read
on screen. And PDF documents launch in a separate browser window with the
Adobe Reader menu and toolbar, throwing the user out of the web site’s familiar
interface and thereby destroying the harmonious, comforting environment, so
carefully established by the web designer. They are also thought of as static
objects, out of place in the dynamic World Wide Web.

“According to many statistics, the
average attention span for web
browsing is about 10 seconds.”

Computer-based presentations, both CD-ROM and web-based, have come a
long way in terms of the ability to inform and influence. By incorporating not only
text and static graphics, but also audio, video and animation, computer-based
content can stimulate more of the senses and thereby fully engage the user.
The addition of interactivity further encourages users to focus on the content,
make decisions, voice their opinions and actively participate in learning or
exploring. However, a presentation, advertisement, or e-learning application
can only be effective if it captures and retains the audience’s attention, and any
distraction, such as shifting to a new user interface or waiting for an application
to open, can jeopardize that tenuous hold. According to many statistics, the
average attention span for web browsing is about 10 seconds. Therefore,
in order to compete with the myriad of alternative products and sources of
information, content must be visually appealing, responsive and targeted to the
user’s needs and preferences. Can PDF documents deliver this kind of user
experience?

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© Integration New Media Inc 2003.


Adobe® has made some recent progress in this direction. With Acrobat 6®,
released in May of this year, authors can now incorporate Flash® animation
within their PDF documents. There is also a new search engine, which allows
users to search for phrases within a single document or across multiple
documents. And Acrobat’s support for form controls allows for the element of
interactivity. But, you say you already have static PDF documents and you want
to be able to reuse them? Don’t despair; there is an even better way to bring
your PDF documents to life.

Marrying PDF documents with multimedia

Multimedia authoring environments such as Director®, Authorware®, Flash®
and PowerPoint® allow for rich multi-sensory experiences by embedding
sound, text, animation and still images. And, with the exception of PowerPoint,
these applications can be “programmed” to allow sophisticated interaction and
navigation. They can ask questions to collect information on user preferences
and abilities, and subsequently tailor the content presented to the user’s profile.
They even have the capacity to monitor individual or group usage patterns. By
marrying PDF documents with such rich-media applications, content developers
can make use of existing PDF material, while gaining the highest possible
degree of interactivity and the ability to incorporate a wide variety of stimuli.

The illustration below shows a product catalog that uses PDF documents in a
multimedia presentation along with video, text and still photographs.

PDF documents
are used to
illustrate technical
information and
pricing.

Pictures and videos
demonstrate the
products in action.

JLG e-catalog screenshot courtesy of Andy Petroski

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There are two approaches to using PDF documents with multimedia
applications:

1) Launch PDF documents in a separate application window
2) Integrate PDF documents directly within the multi-media environment

All of the above mentioned authoring tools have the ability to launch an
external application, such as Adobe Reader, in a separate window. This type
of solution is often free and it only requires that the end-user have a version of
Adobe Reader on his system. However, it may require some scripting by the
developer, and the deployment is not always reliable -- may behave differently
across different operating systems, and will not work at all if system registry
settings are not correct or the application is not present. This approach
also breaks the continuity and flow of the application, and disrupts the end-
user’s experience, forcing him to shift attention to another user interface. It is
preferable to integrate PDF documents within the application, so that the user is
not thrown out of his working environment.

Current options for integrating PDFs

There are only two solutions that currently offer seamless integration of
PDF documents within multimedia environments. One is an Xtra extension
for Director and Authorware created by Integration New Media (INM), and
appropriately named PDF Xtra. The other is Flash; the new release of Flash
MX 2004 is now able to import PDF documents. These two solutions work very
differently and are best suited to different delivery strategies.

Either solution can be delivered either locally or via the Internet. However,
Flash is optimized for web delivery, whereas the PDF Xtra solution, which uses
Director or Authorware, is better suited to CD-ROM and Intranet delivery. The
fundamental differences inherent in Flash and Director also influence how they
support PDF documents.

Flash imports PDF documents
Flash allows you to import PDF documents directly into your movie, so that their
contents are available to be displayed as is or manipulated within the authoring
environment. The original PDF contents are converted to separate objects in
Flash. Upon importing a document there are several options to choose from,
which allow the author to convert each page to an image format (rasterize), or
import each individual element as a vector-formatted object. This flexibility can
be useful if the intent is to animate individual elements of the original document

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within Flash. However, it also negates some of the key benefits of using PDF in
the first place. Among the drawbacks of the Flash solution, the following stand
out:

1) Because the original contents are altered in Flash, this means if any
changes are made to the original source, the document will have to
be re-imported into Flash. If there are animation effects on individual
elements they will have to be redone, etc.
2) If you choose to rasterize your pages, they will no longer print or render
smoothly when scaled, as they do in Acrobat/ Reader.
3) You must have the original fonts used in the PDF document, or else they
will be substituted when the document is imported to Flash, even if the
fonts are embedded in the original PDF.
4) There is no automatic way to allow the end-user to scroll the document,
resize or navigate through it. This kind of interaction has to be
implemented by the developer using action script.

Nevertheless, considering that this is the first version of Flash to support PDF
documents, Macromedia has done a wonderful job. It will be interesting to see
how the feature evolves over time.

PDF Xtra links documents
INM’s PDF Xtra links your PDF document to Director or Authorware, with
the option to specify a variety of custom display settings or elect to use the
document’s default settings. Because the original PDF documents are linked
and not imported or converted, they do not have to be re-imported if you decide
to make changes to them. Your content files can even be replaced on disk just
before final packaging, without the need to re-enter the authoring environment.

At run-time, PDF Xtra launches Acrobat or Adobe Reader silently in the
background, so the user never leaves the multimedia environment. The end-
user can control the display, navigation, and printing at run-time, either via
the optional Adobe Reader toolbar, right-click menu, or via your own custom
buttons. The hand and text selection tools are automatically enabled so the user
can scroll long pages within the presentation window. PDF form controls are
also automatically active. Pre-coded user interactions, called behaviors, make
it easy to build a custom user interface in Director without using any scripting. In
addition, an elaborate application programming interface is available for more
advanced programmers.

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Screenshot of PDF document displayed within Director’s stage

PDF Xtra is very simple to learn and use, and it allows you to display PDF
documents cleanly within Director and Authorware. However, because PDF
Xtra uses Adobe Acrobat or Reader, there a few limitations, depending on the
operating system and delivery requirements of your project:
1) Acrobat or Adobe Reader has to be available on the end-user’s system.
Developers can either use a built-in method, to test if a version of
Acrobat/Reader is found on the hard disk, or deliver a specific version of
the free Adobe Reader along with the project on CD-ROM.
2) The full version of Acrobat and the free Reader do not support the all of
the same functions. If you simply need to display and navigate through
PDF documents you will not run into difficulties, but some of the more
sophisticated operations, such as retrieving a document’s text, require the
professional version of Acrobat, which cannot be delivered on CD-ROM.
3) There are differences in the functions supported by Acrobat/Reader
from Windows to Mac. On Windows the functions to navigate from page
to page are supported in all versions of Adobe Reader and Acrobat,
whereas on Mac they are not.
4) The PDF document must sit on top of all other graphical elements; you
cannot place a button or graphic within the area occupied by the PDF
document.
5) User interaction (mouse-clicking) on the document is interpreted directly
by the Adobe application and the underlying multimedia application does
not receive any notification of events, such as when the user moves to a
different page, or when a document is finished printing.

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What the future may hold
Given the ever-growing popularity of PDF and the increasing need to offer more
interactive multimedia experiences, while controlling development costs, the
next generation of PDF integration tools will continue to evolve, to better meet
the needs of developers, project sponsors and ultimately, the end-user. One
can get an idea of what the future may hold from the findings of a recent survey
of multimedia developers, conducted by Integration New Media. The survey
participants had all developed multimedia projects, using PDF documents,
within the last two years.

The needs expressed in participants’ wish lists reveal certain trends that are
emerging in the industry:

- A self-contained product - the ability to seamlessly integrate PDF
documents within a multimedia project, but without requiring additional
applications, such as Acrobat or Reader.
- Transparent document integration – blending the PDF documents into
the user interface (no separate windows or toolbars), resulting in the best
possible visual experience for the user.
- Enhanced creative capabilities - allowing for rich media and document
layout creativity, e.g., customizable toolbars and buttons, ability to add
effects to the PDF, such as transparency, inks, animation, etc.
- Cross-platform consistency – Projects need to run identically on all
platforms, which in turn widens the audience reach, while reducing end-
user support. Developers will no longer have to worry about whether
Acrobat or Reader is installed on their clients’ computers, nor deal
with inconsistencies between different versions of Acrobat/ Reader or
between Mac and Windows.
- Interactive PDFs – The end-user should be able to interact with the
PDF document --click hyperlinks, buttons, form controls, etc. -- and the
multimedia application should be able to monitor that interaction and
have control over it.
- Easy to learn and excellent support – As Authoring tools become
increasingly user- friendly, more junior developers will enter this market,
creating a need for easy-to-use products with superior product support.

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Conclusion

Although the world of multimedia is becoming vastly popular, it does not
necessarily mean the end of traditional desktop publishing. Rather, there is a
bridge that can be built between these two mediums. Creating the right blend
between the two can not only lead to increased productivity, but can help
you deliver your message in a more efficient and more effective manner. The
developers’ wish list of functionalities gives us an idea of what to anticipate
in the next generation of PDF integration tools. And with the arrival of better
adapted development tools, we can expect to see a new wave of e-catalogs,
e-learning and edutainment publications come to life in immersing, rich-media,
even from beginner and non-expert developers -- a real step in rendering
multimedia accessible to everyone.

Gabrielle Krim has a B.A. in Computer Science from Cornell University and
a M.A. in Educational Technology from Concordia University. She has over
10 years experience in the industry, as a software developer and multimedia
author for database and e-learning projects. She has been working for INM as
Instructional Designer and Product Manager since March 2002.

References

www.IntegrationNewMedia.com

www.macromedia.com

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Summary

- Current trends in PDF publishing
Now that PDF publishing is becoming more mainstream, we are finding that
users are demanding more – static PDF documents do not compete against
dynamic web pages.

- Marrying PDF documents with multimedia
By integrating PDF documents within multimedia authoring environments,
content developers can provide interactivity and a variety of multi-sensory
elements, while reusing their existing PDF content.

- Options for integrating PDF in multimedia
INM’s PDF Xtra and Flash are the only solutions available which seamlessly
integrate PDF documents directly into the authoring environment. This section
discusses how their methods of integration differ and the advantages and
disadvantages of each.

- What to look forward to in the future
As PDF integration tools evolve, they will become more streamlined, more
reliable, and easier to learn and use.

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