How to add an audio/video to PDF

This article will tell you how to add and play an audio & video in PDF with Foxit PDF Editor.

Play a Movie or a Sound Clip

Some PDF files may be multifaceted with multimedia, including sound, music, and video clips. Each movie and sound file usually includes a play area from which the media can be activated. The play area typically appears on the PDF page as an image or a blank rectangle, but can also be invisible. To play the media files, please make sure you have the necessary media player installed on your computer.

To play a movie or a sound, please do the following:

• Select the Hand command, and click the play area of the movie or sound file.

Note: To protect your computer from viruses, the application pops up a dialog box soliciting your approval before playing multimedia files. If you trust the document and the media source, check the options: Disable Safe Reading Mode and play media and Add current file to privileged locations.

Adding a movie or a sound clip

Adding movies or sounds to PDFs is as easy as inserting an image. “Movies” are desktop video files with formats such as FLV, AVI, QuickTime, and MPEG, and file extensions such as .avi, .wmv, .mov, .qt, .mpg, and .mpeg. An animated GIF file always has a .gif file extension, while “Sounds” are like midis, wavs, and mp3 files.

Note: If an alert message tells you that no media handler is available, you must install the appropriate player before you can add clips to the PDF. For example, you must install RealPlayer if you want to embed an RMVB file in a PDF.

Adding movies or sounds

1.         Choose Edit > Video & Audio.

2.         Press and hold mouse button down, drag to select an area on the page where you want the movie or sound to appear. For movies, the play area is the exact size of the movie frame.

3.         In the pop-up Add Video & Audio dialog box, you will see some options listed below:

·          Location: click the Browse button to select the movie file you want to insert.

·          Content type: the type of the media you insert. It is selected automatically. But you can also specify the clip type if you want. Please note that changing the Content Type setting may cause problems playing the media.

·          Embed content in document: includes the media file into the PDF file. This option will increase the file size of the PDF. It is selected by default. If the check box is cleared, you will not be able to play it if you open this PDF file on other computers.

·          Poster Settings: choose whether to display an image in the play area when the movie isn’t playing. You can choose to use no poster, or create poster from file.

Edit the play area

To move, resize, align, center or distribute a multiple clip, please refer to the instructions on “Images”. 

Set Video & Audio properties

You can specify properties for the multimedia files you added, such as the appearance of a movie’s play area, whether the movie plays once or continuously, create alternate renditions, etc.

To set video & audio properties, please do the following:

1.         Select the Video & Audio command, or the Select Annotation command.

2.         Double-click the play area or right-click the play area > Properties.

3.         For the Appearance tab, please refer to the instructions on “Setting properties of an image”. 

Note: If you select Locked on any tab, it will lock all options for this multimedia file, but not just the options on that tab.

4.         In the Settings tab, there are many options listed below:

l   Annotation Title — Type the title of the movie or sound in the Annotation Title box. This title does not determine which media file is played.

l   Alternate Text — Type a description of the media file in the Alternate Text box.

l   Renditions – Allows you to create alternate or other renditions to ensure that users can play the movie or sound clip on their systems.

A. List Renditions for Event — You can assign different renditions to different actions but Mouse Up is chosen by default. Mouse Up means that when the mouse button is clicked and released, the rendition is played.

B. Add Rendition – There’re three ways for you to choose: Use a File, Use a URL, By Copying an Existing Rendition

C. Edit Rendition – When clicking the Edit Rendition button, the Rendition Settings dialog box appears, which allows you to specify the playback location, and other settings to differentiate it from other renditions.

            Media Settings — Specifies the general properties for the movie or sound clip:

l   Rendition Name: Enter the name for the rendition, which will appear in the list of renditions. (This name does not determine which media file is played.)

l   Media Clip Location: Specify the clip by typing or navigating to it.

l   Content Type: Will be selected automatically when you specify the clip location. Changing the Content Type setting may cause problems playing the media.

l   Embed content in document: Includes the media file into the PDF file. This option will increase the file size of the PDF. It is selected by default. If the check box is cleared, you will not be able to play it if you open this PDF file on other computers.

l   Rendition Alternate Text: Type a description of the rendition.

l   Allow temp File: Specify whether writing a temp file is allowed and when. Some media players write a temp file when they play a movie or sound clip. If you want to prevent users from easily copying the media content in a secure document, you may want to disallow the creation of temp files. However, selecting this setting may prevent the movie from being played by media players that require the use of temp files.

            Playback Settings – Use this tab to determine how the movie or sound clip is played.

l   Keep Player Open: Select whether you want the player to close after it plays the movie or sound clip.

l   Volume: Lets you specify how loud the movie will be played.

l   Show Player Controls: Select to display a controller bar at the bottom of the play area allowing users to stop, pause, or play the media, provided the media player supports player controls.

l   Repeat: Lets you replay a clip two or more times, or continuously.

l   Player List: Click Add to specify a player and the settings that are required, preferred, or disallowed to play the movie or sound clip. Select the name of the player and the status. If you set the status of more than one player to Required, only one of the required players may be used to play the rendition. If you set the status of players to Preferred, these players are selected over nonpreferred players (but not over required players). If you set the status of players to Disallowed, they are not used to play the rendition.

l   Add/Edit/Delete button: Allows you to add a new player, as well as edit or delete the selected player in the Player List.

   Playback Location – Determines whether a movie or sound clip is played in the PDF, remains hidden while played (recommended for sound clips), is played in a floating window, or is played full screen. The options for Floating Window Settings are unavailable except when you choose Floating Window.

l   Playback Location: Selects the location for playing a movie or sound clip.

l   Background Color: Selects the background color for the media player.

l   Show title bar: Selects to show or hide title bar when playing the media in a floating window.

l   Show control closing window: Selects to show or hide the close button at the top right corner in a floating window.

l   Title Text: Adds a title for the media that will be showed on the title bar when playing the media in a floating window.

l   Resize: Determines to allow or forbid users to resize the floating window. There’re three options for you to choose: Don’t allow user to resize window, Allow user to resize window but maintain original aspect ratio, or Allow user to resize window.

l   Window Position: The window position is determined relative to the document window, application window, the virtual desktop or document monitor.

l   Width/Height: Specifies the width and height of the floating window.

l   If Window is Off-screen: Selects to play, do not play, or move window onto screen to play the media file if the floating window is off-screen.

   Use current playback settings as default for this type of media: Set your settings as the new default for all the multimedia files you create in future.

   D. Delete Renditions – Deletes the selected renditions.

   E. Up/Down – Arranges the order of the renditions. If the first rendition cannot be played, the next available rendition is played.

5.         Actions tab for the Video & Audio properties

             Please refer to the instructions on “The Actions tab for the button properties”.