InDesign Docs

In Part I, I described how to create a simple hot spot, or hot link, in which holding the mouse pointer over an area displays a pop-up image. Now I’ll describe how to create a clickable hot spot — one that requires the user to click an area to display an image.

The steps for doing this are different in InDesign CS3 and CS4. Keith Gilbert described how to build PDF tooltips (PDF) in InDesign CS3.

Creating a Clickable Hot Spot (CS4)

We’re going to use the Show/Hide Button action to display the hidden button when we click. (If you’re familar with creating buttons in Acrobat, “Show/Hide Button” in InDesign is the same as “Show/Hide a Field” in Acrobat.) To create a hot spot that appears when you click, we’ll need to create two separate buttons — one to define the hot spot area and the other to appear when the hot spot area is clicked.

1. Use the Rectangle tool to drag a box over the area you want to define as the hot spot.

In my example, I created a box over the Paris area on the stunningly beautiful map of France.

2. Turn the rectangle object into a button. To do this, select the object, and then either click the [Normal] state in the Buttons panel, or choose Object > Interactive > Convert to Button.

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Here’s another “Bonus Documentation” entry in which I flesh out a task that falls outside the scope of our documentation. When I wrote about creating buttons in InDesign, I included a topic called “Creating button rollover states” that merely hints at one way of creating a hot spot. After I write this blog entry, I’ll link to it from that Help page.

TIP: If you create blog entries or videos for InDesign, or are aware of useful links, please add a comment with a link to the related Help topic. It’s a good way to highlight valuable community content.

Let’s suppose you have a map of France, and you want the Eiffel Tower to appear when (1) the user hovers the mouse pointer over the Paris area or (2) the user clicks in the Paris area.

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