How to Create an Interactive PDF

Understand what an interactive PDF is and how to create one.
How to Create an Interactive PDF

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Static documents are no longer enough to capture and maintain audience attention. Enter interactive PDFs – a powerful tool that transforms ordinary documents into engaging, dynamic experiences. Whether you’re a marketer looking to boost conversions, an educator aiming to enhance learning materials, or a professional seeking to create standout presentations, interactive PDFs offer a world of possibilities.

Let’s dive in and learn how to create PDFs that not only inform but also captivate and interact with your audience.

What is an Interactive PDF?

An interactive PDF is a digital document incorporating clickable elements, forms, multimedia, and other features beyond simple text. These elements can transform a static PDF into a dynamic and interactive experience, enhancing the functionality and user engagement of the document.

Elements for Interactive PDFs

Hyperlinks allow users to navigate to any pages within the document, or the links can also direct to external web pages.

For example, if you have put a quote from an article in your PDF, you can redirect the users to the whole article using hyperlinks.

You can see in the image below, a screenshot from the magazine - All About Space by Future Publishing, they have included a button which is linked to open a video.

Screenshot from the magazine All About Space to highlight that links can be embedded in the magazine.

Fillable Forms

These allow users to enter their data into the PDF directly.

Interactive forms can be helpful for brand surveys or to take feedback from readers towards the end of the PDF.

Buttons

Interactive buttons can perform actions such as submitting forms, resetting fields, navigating to different sections of the document, or triggering multimedia content.

Audio and Video Content

Videos, audio clips, and animations can be embedded directly into the PDF, providing a richer multimedia experience.

This is particularly useful for educational materials, marketing documents, and presentations.

Here’s a sample from the Marketing Edge Magazine where there’s video embedded.

Screenshot from the Marketing Edge Magazine's page where one of the video embeds is highlighted.

Annotation and Comments

Users can add notes, comments, and markups to the PDF, which can be useful for collaboration and feedback.

Bookmarks and Navigation

Bookmarks and a table of contents can help users navigate the document more easily, jumping to specific sections with a click.

Interactive Charts and Graphs

Data visualizations that can be interacted with, such as clicking on a chart to reveal more information or filtering data within the PDF.

Page transitions and animations

You can add visual animations in the PDFs and allow transitions like flipping a page like we do in a normal book, which makes it fun for the readers.

This is another example from Marketing Edge’s Magazine in which there is flip style animation for the PDF.

Screenshot from a magazine showing the flip style animation for page turning

Pop-ups

Pop-ups are a great way to have content not particularly be highlighted in the PDF itself but only shown when a user shows interest in it, i.e, when hovering over or clicking specific areas.

Here’s a sample from the Marketing Edge Magazine’s issue from June 2024, where they use a clickable Youtube’s Logo play button, clicking upon which opens the video as a pop up due to which the user does not have to move to another webpage.