Learn how to create an interactive product catalogue in Adobe InDesign

Transform static product catalogues into stunning interactive digital presentations in Adobe InDesign.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create an interactive menu with clickable product buttons that trigger more information and a hyperlink button.

This is an advanced lesson that may take some trial and error to get it just right.

For this lesson, the interactive panels you will need are Buttons and Forms to set up the button structures and rollover appearances on the tools, Object States to create a Multi-State Object that will sync up with the buttons, Animation to create an animation effect on the product details as well as Hyperlinks, to direct viewers to URLs for more product information.

All of these panels can be found in the Window dropdown and Interactive fly out.

Let's get started!

The first thing you want to do is bring in all the power tool images with the backgrounds removed – or white backgrounds if you're placing on a white canvas. Add the name of the products, price and any other details here, but keep it brief.

Before converting the power tools into buttons, let's go ahead and bring in the same images at larger scale and placed just above the smaller power tool images – much like you see in the example above. It's important to make these images similar in size and ordered to correspond with the power tool images in the menu below.

Setting Up Multi-State Object

1. With Selection Tool, select all the larger power tool images.

2. In the Align object options, located in the Control Panel or Properties Panel, align the horizontal and vertical centres so all the images are stacked together.

3. With all images still selected, click the create Multi-State Object icon, located in the bottom right hand corner of the Object States window.

4. Rename the Multi-State Object to Product Images or something specific to your project. You can also rename each state by double-clicking and re-naming.

5. Repeat the same steps for setting up a Multi-State Object for the product details.

Now that the Multi-State Objects have created, it's time to set up the button structures with rollover appearances that will trigger both the power tool image and product detail states.

Setting Up Buttons

1. Click on the first power tool image – in this case, it is the Circular Saw – and in the Buttons and Forms panel, set the Type into Button.

2. Click the + sign under Actions and select Go to State.

3. In the Object dropdown, select Power Images and under the State dropdown, select the first state, which is the Circular Saw main image.

4. Click the + sign under Actions to add a secondary action to the button and select Go to State.

5. In the Object dropdown, select Product Details and under the State dropdown, select the first state, which is the Circular Saw product details.

6. Under the Appearance section, select Rollover to add a second appearance to the button.

7. Click on Normal, then double click on the image to drive into the selection for Normal.

8. In the Opacity level, set it to 85%. This will create a subtle dimming from 85% to 100% when rolling over the image.

9. Repeat the same steps for the remaining five menu power tool images below.

Let's add an animation to the text frames within the Product Details Multi-State Object.

Setting Up Animation

1. Click on the the product details text frame in the layout.

2. Click on the Object States window and then select the first state in the panel

3. Double click on the text frame to drive into the State One selection

4. In the Animation panel, choose a preset of Fly in from Right (or whatever preset you think works for your project).

5. Repeat the same steps for the remaining five text frames in the Product Details Multi-State Object.

Follow along in the video tutorial as I go over how to add hyperlinks with URL destination.