- Create the Content in InDesign
- Add Interactivity Using the Overlay Creator Panel
- Test
- Build a Folio Using the Folio Builder Panel
- Publish Via Adobe Digital Publishing Suite
- Final Thoughts
Add Interactivity Using the Overlay Creator Panel
This is the fun part. Adding interactivity is where digital content differs from traditional print content and can offer a better overall experience with video, web content, panoramas, and much more. Using InDesign, you can take your files and add interactivity using the Overlay Creator panel. Adding interactivity in InDesign adds an interactive “layer” that is on top of the design content (which is flattened). That’s why it’s called the Overlay Creator panel.
In this section, I’ll take you through one type of interactive overlay you can add, then point you to a place where you can learn more:
- With the InDesign file open that you want to add interactivity to, open the Overlay Creator panel by choosing Window > Extensions > Overlay Creator (see Figure 4).
- Select the Rectangle Frame tool in the Tools panel.
- Draw a rectangle on one of your pages. This rectangle will contain content that is streamed from the web, so make sure it is big enough to fit the content (like a website or RSS feed content).
- With the frame selected, click Web Content in the Overlay Creator panel.
- In the Overlay Creator panel, type or paste a URL that you get from a website, blog, RSS feed, or other (see Figure 5). You can set several options like selecting Autoplay to have the web content show automatically without having to click on the frame.

Figure 4 The Overlay Creator panel
The first type of interactivity you’ll learn is how to add web content like a website to your page. This allows you to add content such as an RSS feed, a blog, website content, and much more.

Figure 5 Insert web content into your pages