i design catalogues for a client in the medical industry. one idea we have is to give out ipads to the top clients, with a preloaded catalogue.

My first question is can i create a button that just launches a catalogue? does it have to be a pdf?

Then my next question is there a way to remotely send over an updated catalogue? The client would want to be careful who received a catalogue. So we could not post on the store.

thanks in advance for any assistance/advice.

You can not launch a PDF from an icon.

There are many PDF readers that will work fine for reading a catalog. The simplest would be Apple's iBooks app. GoodReader is fuller featured for PDF reading and file downloads, but overkill for your stated needs.

You can mail updated PDFs to your clients, but you'd want to give them some minimum training so that they knew how to copy/open the PDF in whatever reader you select.

Another way to solve this, more elegantly, is to get a business developer license and manage the iPads through your own servers. That way you can create and distribute your own catalog app, along with updates and whatever. The monetary investment of the license isn't so bad, but the cost of developing your own apps and maintaining your own servers may be prohibitive.

Or, you could create your own free app, put it in the App Store, but require some kind of in-app registration to download the catalog, and updates. There are lots of apps that are completely useless without some kind of registration. Just be nice and state so clearly in the app descriptions.

I believe there are several companies on the web that will create catalog style apps from your content. Not for free, of course, so you'd have to do a lot of shopping to get a good price and support.