How do you insert video in a PDF?
Written by Cameron James·August 17, 2026Quick answer
You insert video in a PDF with Adobe Acrobat Pro: open the file, go to All Tools, then Add rich media, then Video, draw the area where the video should sit and point it at an MP4 or a URL. Acrobat encodes H.264 video with AAC audio, so an MP4 or MOV in that format is the safe choice. The catch is that the embedded video only plays in Adobe's own desktop apps, so anyone opening your PDF in a browser, on a phone, or in Apple Preview will usually see a still image or a blank box instead. If the video has to play for everyone, host it and put it alongside the PDF behind a single link rather than inside the file.
Key facts
- Inserting video requires Adobe Acrobat Pro. The free Acrobat Reader can play back embedded video but cannot add it.
- Adobe supports H.264-compliant video with AAC audio, typically MP4 and MOV files. FLV and F4V are no longer supported in Acrobat or PDFMaker.
- You can either embed the video file inside the PDF or point the annotation at a URL. Embedding increases the file size of the PDF by roughly the size of the video.
- Video is stored as a RichMedia annotation, a part of the PDF specification that most third-party and browser-based PDF viewers choose not to implement.
- In practice, embedded video plays in desktop Acrobat and Acrobat Reader. In Chrome's built-in viewer, Apple Preview, Google Drive preview and most mobile PDF apps it typically shows as a static poster image or nothing.
- Adobe notes that multimedia in formats other than H.264 requires the recipient to have a separate application such as QuickTime or Windows Media Player installed.
- Hosting the video separately and sharing it alongside the PDF behind one link avoids the viewer problem entirely, because the video plays in the browser rather than in a PDF reader.
The actual steps in Acrobat Pro
Open the PDF in Acrobat Pro, go to All Tools, choose View more, then Add rich media, then Video. Drag a box on the page where you want the video to sit, or double-click the spot and Acrobat will size it for you. In the dialog that appears you either paste a URL or click Choose to pick a file off your machine, and Advanced options lets you set the poster image, which is the frame people see before they press play.
Encode the video as H.264 with AAC audio first if you have any doubt, because that is what Acrobat plays natively. An MP4 straight out of Loom or a phone will usually already be in that format. Anything older, and Adobe's own documentation says the recipient needs QuickTime or Windows Media Player installed, which in 2026 is a bet you will lose.
Why it usually does not play at the other end
Video in a PDF lives in a RichMedia annotation. It is a legitimate part of the PDF spec, and it is also one of the parts that almost nobody outside Adobe bothered to implement.
So the file opens fine everywhere while the video does not. Chrome's built-in viewer, Apple Preview, Google Drive's preview pane and most mobile PDF apps will render your page and then quietly ignore the video, leaving a frozen poster frame that looks like a broken image. Your reader will not email you about it. They read the static pages, move on, and you never find out there was anything to see.
I spent years sending decks and proposals in growth roles, and the thing that stayed with me is how invisible those failures are. A frozen thumbnail is a worse impression than no video at all, because it looks like you shipped something broken.
What to do instead if the video actually matters
If the video is decoration, embed it and accept that most people will not see it. If the video is the explanation, the thing that makes the document make sense, keep it out of the file and host it separately, then share both behind one link so the reader opens them in a browser with nothing to install.
That is what LiveDocument does, and it is the reason it exists. Take a twelve-page proposal where page four is the pricing table and the whole deal turns on why option B is the one you are recommending. You record ninety seconds explaining that, attach it to the PDF, and put a clickable highlight on the pricing table that jumps the video straight to the moment you talk about it. The reader gets your explanation at the point they need it rather than in a separate tab they never open, and you get page-level analytics showing whether page four is where they actually stopped.
It does not do everything Acrobat does. It is not a PDF editor, and if what you need is a self-contained file that works offline with the video inside it, embedding is still your only option. It just will not play for most of the people you send it to.
The Bottom Line
Inserting the video takes about two minutes in Acrobat Pro. Whether it plays for the person you sent it to is decided by which app they open the PDF in, and you do not get to control that, which is why most people who try this once move the video out of the file and put it alongside the document behind one link. That is the approach LiveDocument is built around.
Written by Cameron James