Buttons are most commonly associated with forms, but you can add them to any document. Buttons can open a file, play a sound or movie clip, submit data to a web server, and much more. When deciding on how to initiate an action, remember that buttons offer the following capabilities that links and bookmarks do not:
A button can activate a single action or a series of actions.
A button can change appearance in response to mouse actions.
A button can be easily copied across many pages.
Mouse actions can activate different button actions. For example, Mouse Down (a click), Mouse Up (releasing after a click), Mouse Enter (moving the pointer over the button), and Mouse Exit (moving the pointer away from the button) can all start a different action for the same button.
Buttons are an easy, intuitive way to let users initiate an action in Adobe PDF documents. Buttons can have a combination of labels and icons to lead users through a series of actions or events by changing as the mouse is moved. For example, you can create buttons with “Play,” “Pause,” and “Stop” labels and appropriate icons. Then you can set actions for these buttons to play, pause, and stop a movie clip. You can select any combination of mouse behaviors for a button and specify any combination of actions for a mouse behavior.