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Ways to save time adding hotspots

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Bert Spoor
  • Updated

To help you save time adding hotspots to your publications here are a few tips and best practices:

 

Ways to automate the creation of hotspots

First of all, we'd like to point out the article we wrote on different ways you can set up your PDF or Publitas to automate different parts of the tagging process:

Automated creation of hotspots

 

Keyboard Shortcuts  Bronze.png

You can speed up your workflow by using helpful keyboard shortcuts. This way you don't need to move the mouse for every action necessary, increasing your speed and reducing human error.

To create new hotspots, use the associated key to select the type of hotspot you wish to draw. The key used to draw a Hotspot is the same letter used in the Hotspot's name, aiding your memory of it.

  • L = Link Hotspot
  • J = Page-jump Hotspot
  • V = Video Hotspot (requires a Silver plan or higher)
  • P = Product Hotspot (requires a Gold plan or higher)

After drawing or selecting a hotspot you can use the spacebar on your keyboard to activate the primary input field of the hotspot and type or paste the necessary content.

With product hotspots, you can start typing keywords to look up the appropriate product and use the arrow and enter keys to select a product from the results. To add multiple variations of a product (e.g. sizes, colors) you can hold the Shift key and add multiple results to the hotspot at once.

The option on the left will bring up an overview of all keyboard shortcuts:
CleanShot_2020-05-29_at_15.27.51_2x.png

 

Reposition icons strategically  Bronze.png

Did you know you can also reposition the hotspot icons within the hotspot area? This way you can determine the right clickable area (hotspot area) and move the icon to a strategic position. Read more about optimal icon placement here.


Copy and paste hotspots  Bronze.png

Use Ctrl+C (Mac: Cmd+C) to copy hotspots and Ctrl+V (Mac: Cmd+V) to paste hotspots. This also works for selections of multiple hotspots.
Read more about copy-pasting hotspots.

 

Import hotspots from another publication  ENT.png

In the pane on the left, you'll find the option to import all hotspots from another publication in one go.

CleanShot_2020-06-03_at_15.22.34_2x.png

This is particularly helpful in case you have multiple versions of the same or very similar publications. Read the details and how to use the tool in our article Importing hotspots from another publication. 


Recommended workflow

To increase your speed and reduce human error we recommend to split up the tagging process into several steps:

  1. Start off by creating empty hotspots with repositioned icons.
  2. After the publication is completely filled with empty hotspots start populating them with content. The key here is momentum, so if it takes more than a few attempts to find the relevant product or link simply delay that one and leave the hotspot empty for later review.
  3. Once all available content has been added you can finish up by reviewing all hotspots that remain without the proper content assigned. These can easily be spotted as they are still marked red.

Also see Can hotspots overlap?

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