Add movies or sounds to PDFs

You can add movies and sounds to PDFs in Windows if the media is playable in Windows Media Player, Flash Player, RealPlayer, or QuickTime. In Mac OS, you can add QuickTime compatible movies and sounds to PDFs.

Before you add a movie or sound clip to a PDF, you must decide if your clip will be compatible—that is, playable—in Acrobat 6 and later, or in earlier versions as well. If you choose the Acrobat 6 Compatible Media option, you have many more choices, such as the option to embed the movie and add multiple renditions. However, users with earlier versions of Acrobat will have to download Adobe Reader to play your clip.

You can provide different renditions of the movie that play if the users’ settings vary. For example, you may want to include a low-resolution rendition for users with slow Internet connections.

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 QuickTime if you want to embed an MOV file in a PDF.

Add a movie or sound clip

  1. Choose Tools > Advanced Editing, and select either the Movie tool  or the Sound tool .
  2. Drag or double-click to select the 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 (if Acrobat can read the movie clip’s dimensions).
  3. In the dialog box that appears, select a compatibility setting for your clip:
    Option Description
    Acrobat 6 (And Later) Compatible Media

    Provides access to all options, but the user must have version 6.0 or later of Acrobat or Adobe Reader to play the clip.
    Acrobat 5 (And Earlier) Compatible Media

    Ensures that your clip is available to users who have not yet upgraded from version 5.0 or earlier of Acrobat or Adobe Reader. This option requires that you select media that is playable in the QuickTime player.
  4. To specify the clip, type the path or URL in the Location box, or click Browse (Windows) or Choose (Mac OS) and double-click the movie file.
  5. If you selected Acrobat 6 (and Later) Compatible Media, you can include the clip with the PDF by selecting Embed Content In Document. This option will increase the file size of the PDF.
  6. To display an image in the play area when the movie isn’t playing, select a poster option, and then click OK. After you add the movie to the PDF, you can specify additional properties that determine how the clip appears and plays.

Edit the play area

  1. Using the Movie tool , the Sound tool , or the Select Object tool , click the play area to select it.

    When you move any of these tools over the play area, handles appear on the borders of the play area, even on those with invisible borders.

  2. Do any of the following:

    • Move the clip by dragging its icon to a new location on the page.

    • Delete the clip by selecting it and pressing Delete.

    • Resize the clip by dragging one of the corners of the frame until it is the desired size. Hold down Shift to retain the correct proportions for movie clips.

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