Getting a sound file to work in an Acrobat 8 compatible file

Why yes, you can! The trick is to use the old media annotations. Like the sound annot, on the Multimedia toolbar. Or you can just add a button to PDF and use the "Play a sound" or "Play Acrobat 6 compatible media" action. Of course you have the security warning issue the first time it's played:(

Thom Parker
The source for PDF Scripting Info
[url=http://www.pdfScripting.com]pdfscripting.com[/url]

The Acrobat JavaScript Reference, Use it Early and Often
[url=http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php]http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php[/url]

Thanks for gettting me an answer. This thing is not easy to work with. It seems there are lots of hoops one has to go through to get a sound file to play. I finaly figured I could get a midi file to embed and be played which reduced the file size down from a 3 meg mp3 down to a 15 KB file. And I finally figured out how to get it in with the Sound Tool. There are some things I can't seem to get it to do though when I use the Sound tool.

There is no way after I put a Poster Image in to make it so it is visible on screen but doesn't print like you can with fields. If I use a button I can do that but I can't see a way to get the sound file when I select Play Media (Acrobat 6 and Later Compatible) option unless the sound is allready available. And how do I do that unless I get it in using the Sound Tool.

Another thing I have noticed is when I click on the icon or button etc. and the warning dialog opens asking me to either check the radio button to play the media just once or check the radio button to add the action to the list so it will play when ever the document is opened, if I click cancel because I changed my mind not matter how much I click the icon again nothing happens until I close the document and open it up again. Well what if I decide to come back to the page where the media is and want to play it? I'm looking but I can't see a way to get around this.

My list of screw ball things about Acrobat is getting longer and now I can add another category for multi media.

All I want is a document as small as I can get it (hence the midi file), easy for an average user to come to a page that shows some sheet music and click somewhere on that page and play a sound file to hear what the song sounds like and be able to follow along. All in one file.

Anyway thanks for the help. If you have any other suggestions that would be great.

I'd be careful with that MIDI file. Acrobat doesn't play media (except for flash and that's only in Acrobat 9). It dumps the media to a player that already exists on the users system. So the user has to have something that will play the MIDI.

If you use the old multimedia screen annot to add the sound file, are mark the rendition data a visible to JavaScript, then it will be visible to a button action.

Cheers,
Thom Parker
The source for PDF Scripting Info
[url=http://www.pdfScripting.com]pdfscripting.com[/url]

The Acrobat JavaScript Reference, Use it Early and Often
[url=http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php]http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php[/url]

Great. Here I thought I was getting down to something very workable. I am going to go on the asumption that most people have something on thier computers that will play the midi file. I have tried this file out on several Windows and Mac machines running Reader 7, 8, and 9 and everything works.

I have never understood why midi files have been excluded from Acrobat which they seem to have always been. I'm looking for the smallest file size I can get and midi files would do it.

Well, MIDI really isn't a real sound file. It's more like a set of instructions for playing specific instruments, like a sheet of music. To play those instruments you have to have sound samples for them. It's really a pretty complex thing. To play a MIDI file the contents have to be interpreted into actual sound data. This is very different from a true sound file which is just a list of sound levels that are converted to a voltage and sent to a speaker, no inteligence needed.

Thom Parker
The source for PDF Scripting Info
[url=http://www.pdfScripting.com]pdfscripting.com[/url]

The Acrobat JavaScript Reference, Use it Early and Often
[url=http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php]http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php[/url]

Bummer. Thanks for the info. I didn't know that. I appreciate the help.