[Clere Design]

Basically, I'm building a digital catalogue that runs off a CD and uses a Flash 'page turning component' to display the pages. Certain pages will have links that use Flash's Fscommand call to open Word and Excel documents.

Has anyone got any bright ideas of how to Convert a PDF to a Flash FLA file without converting to an image first?

I know I can open a PDF in Photoshop, save as a PNG or JPG and then import this into Flash, however the quality isn't brilliant. If you use a hi-res image, then you get a hi-res file size...

Currently, the best way I have found, is to open the PDF in Illustrator, then export it as a SWF. Illustrator converts all text to shapes and you end up with a small SWF, yet great quality when displayed in larger sizes. As I'm currently using a page turning flash component that loads SWF files, I need the quality to be good for the 'Zoom' function.

I've found an Illustrator script that will do the hard work via a 'batch' process, so I can take a 100 page PDF and convert the whole lot to 100 SWF files while I drink tea and 'look busy' and read a magazine, but the problem I have is that I need to add a layer of buttons to several of the SWF files to add a little functionality....

I do have a SWF to FLA decompiler which does a good job, however because Illustrator turns everything into shapes, the decompiler does the same and you end up with thousands of files in the library.... Plus there are a lot of error messages when the file is first loaded...

Many layers are masked, (for some reason without a fill), so if you publish the decompiled file straight away, you just get a blank file. Once you go through and fill the masks needed, it shows when you publish, but this really is a lot of work and I've had a few pages that show when you open the SWF file, but don't show when the SWF is called into the page turning file.... Hmmm....

So in short, I'd like to take a PDF and convert it to a FLA file, add a layer of buttons and publish as a SWF file....

Anyone got any 'Pearls of Wisdom'?

Many thanks in advance...

Jon

http://www.clere.uk.com
http://www.clereprint.co.uk