How to. Create a Button that links to First Page of my PDF

Digitip 074 -Adobe Acrobat 9

Modified: 24 August 9:40pm (slight rewrite, addition Leonard’s comment)

Q: I received an email last week, that in a nutshell phrased the following question: How do I create a button on all the pages of a PDF document that, when clicked, links back to the first page of my PDF?

A good enough incentive to finally write up another digitip. Due to time constraints no screenshots this time, but instead a step-by-step list of instructions that will provide the answer to this question.

A: [Acrobat 9]:

1. Click the Forms button in the toolbar and select “Add or Edit Fields”. A message might appear warning you that there are no form fields in this PDF currently. In addition it will ask you if you want Acrobat to automatically detect fields for you. Alternatively –as per Leonard’s comment below – Select the Button (tool) from the Tools > Advanced Editing menu and continue with step 4.
2. When only adding a single button and not working in Forms, click “No” when asked to auto detect fields.
3. From the “Add New Field” drop-down menu select “Button”
4. On Page 2 of the document, click in the location you want to have the button appear (or click and drag to set your own button size)
5. Click “Show All Properties”, in the General tab,
6. Enter the Field Name: “bBackToPage1” (replace this with your preferred text)
7. Set the Form Field to “Visible but doesn’t print”.
8. Click the Appearance Tab, and select the Fill Colour of your Button, as well as the prefered Font and Font Size. Basically these few settings give you control over the button design.
9. Click the Options tab
10. Set Layout to “Label only”. This means you’re creating a simple button, using the basic button appearance as set in the previous set, with some text on it indicating the purpose of the button to the viewer of the document.
11. under Icons and Label enter the Label Text. This is the text the viewer of the PDF will see displayed on the button, e.g. “to Page 1”.
12. Click the Actions tab
13. Under “Add an Action” set: Select Trigger: Mouse Up and Select Action: Execute menu item
14. Click Add…
15. From the Menu items list select View > Got To > First Page
16. Click Close

You’ve now created One button on one page, that when clicked, will take the user to the First Page of the document.  Now let’s duplicate this button so it appears on all other pages of the document:

1. Right Click the button and select “Duplicate”
2. In the dialog that appears specify the page range on which the button is to appear.
3. Click OK
4. Click “Close Form Editing” [not required in Acrobat 8 or earlier]
5. And test that the button is behaving as intended, by navigating to pages in the document, and clicking the button.

If you are still using Acrobat 8, then start by displaying the Forms Toolbar, and use the Button-tool to create the button and read-on from step 4. You won’t have to Close Form Editing in Acrobat 8 either, instead select the Hand Tool to test the form.