Is it possible to embed the Facebook & Twitter Feed Widgets into a PDF File Live?

Again, yes. If you have the Flash to display the HTML, then that flash can be loaded into an RMA on a PDF and run just like it would be from an HTML page.

Can you explain, please?
Are you talking about a SWF file or about some (copy-pasted) code to embed?
Thanks.

Thom's talking about a SWF that contains an object on the stage which can be instructed via ActionScript to render a chunk of HTML.

It works for **very** basic stuff (formatted text with links, such as a feed reader) but it's never going to be a "browser in a box" - webpages that use anything even remotely complicated will break it.

The only way you can actually render a live website within the Acrobat or Reader application frame is when you add "web content" to an Acrobat X PDF Portfolio - as this is the only way to wake up the embedded browser engine.

UVSAR, thanks for these infos.

They are some free HTML/RSS Flash viewer here: http://www.ffiles.com/flash/news_readers/

;-)

May be using this free SWF file embeded in a PDF? :
http://www.ffiles.com/flash/web_applications_and_data/4o_mytweets_as3_twitter_reader_2966.php

Merlin, thanks for the tip on the free flash downloads. I just gave an RSS and a Twitter feed a try in Acrobat X. Both worked beautifully.

This is the first time I have placed a SWF that accesses web content into a PDF RMA. But I was fairly confident that the general methodology works since Joel Geraci has an example on his blog that displays a google map.

The only potential problem is that there is a security issue with the PDF accessing web content in a domain different from its own. But, this can be resolved though the use of a cross domain file, or by using the enhanced security feature in Acrobat/Reader.

I do not currently see any problem to displaying sophisticated web content in a PDF using the RMA.

Joel has a wealth of info on his blog on using the RMA, including a SWF that displays YouTube in a PDF.
http://blogs.adobe.com/pdfdevjunkie/category/acrobat/rich-media-annotations

It also works fine with Flash widget using local webcam content, as that (silly) SWF: http://www.ffiles.com/flash/miscellaneous/snow_webcam_2699.php

;-)

Thank you Thom and Merlin. I have been using Joel's youtube widget since he developed it. I was one of the key people that asked the Adobe Team to release it for a project I am working on.

I am no Flash user Merlin, so is it easy to open the Flash Project and know where to insert the html?

I am thinking that I can use this to add Facebooks and Twitter feeds within my PDF documents. Anything special I will need to know?

Thanks Again.

Rob

I'm not a Flash user too, I just get some free ready-to-use SWF on the web for demonstration (for training).

;-)

I found another gold mine for SWF and FLA files : http://www.flashkit.com/movies/

:-))

Brilliant Stuff!! Thanks again Merlin

thomp,

Could you describe a little bit how you were able to get the twitter feed to work within a pdf?

I've embedded several different SWFs into a pdf and none of them pull in twitter feeds in Acrobat X.
I get a popup warning saying the widget is trying to connect to twitter.com. I allow it, but then no feeds are visible.
Playing the SWFs in flash works fine though.

I have copied twitter's free javascript feed into an html file and previewing the file in a pdf portfolio does dynamically pull in the twitter feed.
However, I'd like to display live updates within a pdf that is not a portfolio and is viewed offline. I'm not sure if the Flash player within Acrobat has security restrictions that will prevent this from happening regardless of AS code.

I've minimized all security restrictions in Acrobat and it still doesn't work.
Am I missing something, or is Acrobat not built to handle this task at this time? Is twitter's API inaccessible from within a PDF?