This tutorial shows how to add tooltips to PDFs in Adobe Acrobat.
[Typewriter sounds]
Hello, my name is Erin.
[Chime sound]
This tutorial shows how to add tooltips to PDFs in Adobe Acrobat.
Specifically, we will add tooltips to forms and navigation buttons.
Tooltips are short pieces of information that appear when users hover their cursor over interactive elements.
Tooltips are spoken by screen reading software.
Therefore, ensure that your tooltips provide additional information to help users instead of repeating existing text.
Not all form elements or buttons require tooltips.
Today I’ll be using Adobe Acrobat DC.
These steps also apply to Adobe Acrobat 2020 and Adobe Acrobat 2017.
The process is the same for PC and Mac users.
Adobe’s free PDF display software, Acrobat Reader, doesn’t provide a way to add tooltips.
These steps assume that you have already created your form.
We will walk through the steps to create forms in a separate tutorial.
To begin, open the PDF containing the form and then select the Tools tab.
Next, select Prepare Form in the Tools Center.
Now, select the selection arrow in the Prepare Form toolbar, if it is not already selected.
And then double-click the form element to open the Properties dialog box.
Form elements can be text boxes, check boxes, radio buttons, list boxes, dropdown menus,
date fields, digital signature boxes, and buttons.
The name of the Properties dialog box will reflect the element you selected.
Next, select the General tab if you are not already there.
And type your tooltip text into the text box.
When you’re finished, select the Close button.
In order to test your new tooltip, select the Preview or Close button in the Prepare Form toolbar.
And then hover your cursor over the form element.
Before we move on, it’s important to note that Adobe doesn’t provide a formal method to delete or edit tooltips.
Instead, repeat the steps we just walked through,
and then delete or edit the text in the Tooltip text box in the Properties dialog box.
Now we’re going to add a tooltip to a navigation button.
To learn how to create navigation buttons, please see my other tutorials titled
“How to Create Navigation Buttons in PDFs with Adobe Acrobat”
and “How to Create Buttons to Page Views in PDFs with Adobe Acrobat.”
To begin, open the PDF containing the button and then select the Tools tab.
Followed by Rich Media in the Tools Center.
Next, select the Select Object button in the Rich Media toolbar.
And then double-click the button to open the Button Properties dialog box.
Once again, type your tooltip text into the text box.
And then select the Close button.
Followed by the Close button in the Rich Media toolbar.
You can now hover your cursor over the button to see your new tooltip.
As always, remember to save your PDF to save your changes.
I have created many other videos about Adobe Acrobat
including “How to Split a PDF into Multiple PDFs in Adobe Acrobat”
And, “How to Insert Watermarks in PDFs with Adobe Acrobat.”
Please see the complete list in the playlist titled “How to Use Adobe Acrobat,”
which is linked in the description box below.
The companion blog post for this video showing all the steps we just performed
appears on erinwrightwriting.com, along with all my other step-by-step document software tutorials
to help you succeed at work and in the classroom.
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Thank you so much for watching!
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