Last updated on
Feb 26, 2026
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Also applies to Adobe Acrobat 2017, Adobe Acrobat 2020
- Acrobat User Guide
- Introduction to Acrobat
- Access Acrobat from desktop, mobile, web
- Introducing the new Acrobat experience
- What's new in Acrobat
- Keyboard shortcuts
- System Requirements
- Download Adobe Acrobat
- Download Acrobat | Enterprise term or VIP license
- Download Acrobat 64-bit for Windows
- Install Adobe Acrobat Reader | Windows
- Install Adobe Acrobat Reader | Mac OS
- Install updates for Acrobat and Reader
- Update your Acrobat to the latest version
- Download Acrobat 2020
- Release Notes | Acrobat, Reader
- Workspace
- Workspace basics
- Opening and viewing PDFs
- Working with online storage accounts
- Acrobat and macOS
- Acrobat notifications
- Grids, guides, and measurements in PDFs
- Asian, Cyrillic, and right-to-left text in PDFs
- Adobe Acrobat for Outlook
- Set Acrobat as default PDF viewer
- Explore Acrobat tools
- Workspace basics
- Creating PDFs
- Editing PDFs
- Edit text in PDFs
- Edit images or objects in a PDF
- Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages
- Edit scanned PDFs
- Enhance document photos captured using a mobile camera
- Optimizing PDFs
- PDF properties and metadata
- Links and attachments in PDFs
- PDF layers
- Page thumbnails and bookmarks in PDFs
- PDFs converted to web pages
- Setting up PDFs for a presentation
- PDF articles
- Geospatial PDFs
- Applying actions and scripts to PDFs
- Change the default font for adding text
- Delete pages from a PDF
- Edit a signed PDF | FAQ
- Scan and OCR
- Forms
- PDF forms basics
- Create a form from scratch in Acrobat
- Create and distribute PDF forms
- Fill in PDF forms
- PDF form field properties
- Fill and sign PDF forms
- Setting action buttons in PDF forms
- Publishing interactive PDF web forms
- PDF form field basics
- PDF barcode form fields
- Collect and manage PDF form data
- About forms tracker
- PDF forms help
- Send PDF forms to recipients using email or an internal server
- Combining files
- Combine or merge files into single PDF
- Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages
- Add headers, footers, and Bates numbering to PDFs
- Crop PDF pages
- Add watermarks to PDFs
- Add backgrounds to PDFs
- Working with component files in a PDF Portfolio
- Publish and share PDF Portfolios
- Overview of PDF Portfolios
- Create and customize PDF Portfolios
- Sharing, reviews, and commenting
- Share and track PDFs online
- Mark up text with edits
- Preparing for a PDF review
- Starting a PDF review
- Hosting shared reviews on SharePoint or Office 365 sites
- Participating in a PDF review
- Add comments to PDFs
- Adding a stamp to a PDF
- Approval workflows
- Managing comments | view, reply, print
- Importing and exporting comments
- Tracking and managing PDF reviews
- Saving and exporting PDFs
- Security
- Enhanced security setting for PDFs
- Securing PDFs with passwords
- Manage Digital IDs
- Securing PDFs with certificates
- Opening secured PDFs
- Removing sensitive content from PDFs
- Setting up security policies for PDFs
- Choosing a security method for PDFs
- Security warnings when a PDF opens
- Securing PDFs with Adobe Experience Manager
- Protected View feature for PDFs
- Overview of security in Acrobat and PDFs
- JavaScripts in PDFs as a security risk
- Attachments as security risks
- Allow or block links in PDFs
- Edit secured PDFs
- Electronic signatures
- Sign PDF documents
- Capture your signature on mobile and use it everywhere
- Send documents for e-signatures
- Create a web form
- Request e-signatures in bulk
- Collect online payments
- Brand your account
- About certificate signatures
- Certificate-based signatures
- Validating digital signatures
- Adobe Approved Trust List
- Manage trusted identities
- Printing
- Accessibility, tags, and reflow
- Searching and indexing
- Multimedia and 3D models
- Add audio, video, and interactive objects to PDFs
- Adding 3D models to PDFs (Acrobat Pro)
- Displaying 3D models in PDFs
- Interacting with 3D models
- Measuring 3D objects in PDFs
- Setting 3D views in PDFs
- Enable 3D content in PDF
- Adding multimedia to PDFs
- Commenting on 3D designs in PDFs
- Playing video, audio, and multimedia formats in PDFs
- Add comments to videos
- Print production tools (Acrobat Pro)
- Preflight (Acrobat Pro)
- PDF/X-, PDF/A-, and PDF/E-compliant files
- Preflight profiles
- Advanced preflight inspections
- Preflight reports
- Viewing preflight results, objects, and resources
- Output intents in PDFs
- Correcting problem areas with the Preflight tool
- Automating document analysis with droplets or preflight actions
- Analyzing documents with the Preflight tool
- Additional checks in the Preflight tool
- Preflight libraries
- Preflight variables
- Color management
- Troubleshoot
- Troubleshoot PDF printing in Acrobat and Acrobat Reader
- Adobe Acrobat license has either expired or not been activated
- Edit PDF forms created in LiveCycle Designer
- Insufficient data for an image error on Adobe Acrobat
- Resolve errors related to the AcroCEF/RdrCEF processes of Acrobat or Acrobat Reader
Learn how to play multimedia such as audio, video or interactive media in Acrobat.
Play multimedia in PDFs
To play the video or sound file, use the Hand tool or Select tool. When you hover over the play area, the pointer changes to the play mode icon 
.
Save multimedia from PDFs (Windows)
Right-click on the multimedia file in the PDF, and then select Save Audio As, or Save Video As to save the file.
Supported multimedia files
Following are the types of multimedia supported in PDFs created using Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Acrobat Reader or earlier:
Video
MP3, MP4, MOV, M4V, 3GP, and 3G2 video files that use H.264 compression. You must have H.264 codecs installed on your computer to play files that use H.264 compression.
Audio
MP3 and MP4
You can play multimedia files on a page or activate them from a link, bookmark, form field, or page action. Each file has a play area that you can use to activate the media. The play area is usually displayed as an image or a rectangle on the PDF page, but it can also be invisible.
Acrobat and Reader allow you to play legacy multimedia files, like QuickTime, MPEG, ASF, RAM, and Windows® Media files, that were created with an older version of Acrobat. However, you can't create legacy multimedia files using Acrobat and Reader X.
Note
To help protect your computer from viruses, Acrobat asks you if you want to play multimedia files from unverified sources. You can change this default behavior in Preferences > Multimedia Trust (legacy) > Allow multimedia operations.
Set multimedia preferences
You need to set multimedia preferences for the following two types of PDF files:
PDF files created in Acrobat 8 and earlier.
PDF files containing multimedia content that needs a plug-in or external player to play, rather than the built-in media player.
You need to specify a media player to play these files.
To do this, press Ctrl + K (Windows) or Command + K (macOS) to open Preferences. Select Multimedia (legacy) > Player Options.
Player Options
Select the format in which you want to run legacy media content: QuickTime, Windows Media, or Windows built-in player.
Cause
Accessibility Options
Specify whether to display available special features, such as subtitles and dubbed audio, when playing media. You can also specify your preferred language for the media in case multiple languages are available.
Manage external players
Acrobat and Reader have a built-in media player that can play most multimedia files, such as audio, video, or legacy multimedia content that requires external resources such as a player or plug-in.
You can check the supported multimedia files in Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Acrobat Reader
Multimedia Trust (legacy)
In Acrobat and Reader 10.1.1 or earlier, you can control how embedded multimedia files in PDF documents are played using the Multimedia Trust preferences. By choosing to play multimedia only in trusted documents, which are approved by you or an author you trust, you can reduce the risk of damage to your computer from programs, macros, or viruses.
The list of trusted documents and authors is not visible and is stored internally. If you add a certified document to the list, both the document and the author's certificate are added to the list of trusted documents. All documents certified by the author are considered trusted. Note that, Trusted documents also include PDFs from authors in your list of trusted identities.
Press Ctrl + K (Windows) or Command + K (macOS) to open Preferences. Select Multimedia Trust (legacy) option from the right panel.
(Acrobat and Reader 10.1.1 or earlier) Display Permissions For
Select to set permissions for either trusted documents or other (non-trusted) documents.
Trust Options
Allow multimedia operations
Select this option to allow media clips to be played. When selected, you can change the permission settings for a particular player and enable options that determine the appearance of the media during playback.
Change permission for selected multimedia player to
Select the player from the list, and then select one of the following options from the menu:
- Always: Allows the player to be used without prompting.
- Never: Prevents the player from being used.
- Prompt: Asks the user whether the player can be used. If you select this option and allow the player to play the media in a particular document, that document becomes trusted.
Allow playback in a floating window with no title bars
Select this option to run the video without a title bar. The result is that no title or close buttons are displayed.
Allow document to set title text in a floating-playback window
Select this option to display a title bar when the video plays back in a floating window.
Allow playback in full-screen window
It automatically plays the video in full-screen mode when it is played back. Full-screen display can conflict with end-user security settings.
(Acrobat and Reader 10.1.1 or earlier) Clear Your List Of Trusted Documents
Deletes the current list of trusted documents and authors. Use this option to prevent media from playing in documents that were previously trusted documents or created by trusted authors. This option is available only when a PDF that contains multimedia is open.
