This tutorial shows how to add tooltips to PDFs in Adobe Acrobat. Specifically, we will add tooltips to forms and navigation buttons.
What Are Tooltips?
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 and buttons require tooltips.
Quick Links:
How to Add Tooltips to Navigation Buttons
This tutorial is also available as a YouTube video showing all the steps in real time.
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The images below are from 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.
How to Add Tooltips to Forms
These steps assume you have already created your form. We will walk through the steps to create forms in an upcoming tutorial.
- Open the PDF containing the form.
- Select the Tools tab.
- Select Prepare Form in the Tools Center.
- Select the selection arrow in the Prepare Form toolbar if it is not already selected.
- 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.
- Select the General tab if you are not already there.
- Type the text into the Tooltip text box.
- Select the Close button.
- Select the Preview or Close button in the Prepare Form toolbar.
- Hover your cursor over the form element to see your new tooltip.
Important Note: Adobe doesn’t provide a formal method to delete or edit tooltips. Instead, repeat the steps above, and then delete or edit the text in the Tooltip text box in the Properties dialog box (see figure 5).
How to Add Tooltips to Navigation Buttons
These steps assume you have already created your navigation button.
To learn how to create navigation buttons, please see “How to Create Navigation Buttons in PDFs with Adobe Acrobat” and “How to Create Buttons to Page Views in PDFs with Adobe Acrobat.”
- Open the PDF containing the button.
- Select the Tools tab (see figure 1).
- Select Rich Media in the Tools Center.
- Select Select Object in the Rich Media toolbar.
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- Double-click the button to open the Button Properties dialog box.
- Type the text into the Tooltip text box (see figure 5).
- Select the Close button (see figure 6).
- Select the Close button in the Rich Media toolbar.
- Hover your cursor over the button to see your new tooltip.
Related Resources
How to Split a PDF into Multiple PDFs in Adobe Acrobat (PC & Mac)
How to Insert Watermarks in PDFs with Adobe Acrobat
Updated October 05, 2021