Adding Links And Bookmarks To PDF File Attachments Using AutoBookmark™ Plug-in For Adobe® Acrobat®

Introduction: A PDF file may contain embedded file attachments and it is often necessary to hyperlink to these documents. You can direct readers from the main PDF document to a PDF attachment by creating a link in the parent document that points to the attachment. The AutoBookmark™ software provides an automated method for creating links to PDF attachments in a quick and efficent way via using "Create Links From Dictionary" function. This method allows associating text keywords or sentences with a specific file attachment. The software will search the PDF document and automatically add links to all matching text. The following tutorial provides step-by-step instructions for linking to file attachments.
Sample Document Description: The sample PDF document we are going to use in this tutorial contains 5 PDF file attachments. The goal is to automatically generate links from all occurrences of specific keywords to a page in the corresponding PDF attachment. The resulting links will be used to auto-generate bookmarks with identical actions.
Prerequisites: You need a copy of Adobe Acrobat Standard or Professional along with AutoBookmark™ plug-in installed on your computer in order to use this tutorial. You can download trial versions of both Adobe Acrobat and AutoBookmark™.

Step 1 - Open a PDF File: Start Adobe Acrobat and open a PDF file that contains a PDF file attachment(s).
Step 2 - Open “Create Links From Dictionary” Dialog: Select "Plug-ins > Links > Create Links From Dictionary..." from the main menu. This will open "Create Links From Dictionary" dialog.
Step 3 - Create New Dictionary: Press "Create New Dictionary" button to create a new empty "link dictionary" and open it in the link editor.
Step 4 - Create New Entry: Press "Add" button to create a new entry in the link dictionary.
Step 5 - Specify Link Parameters: 5-a. In "Edit Link Action" dialog you can specify a search text and a corresponding link action.; Enter a text to add link to in the certain box. According to the tutorial goal search terms base on the text in the PDF file, that is similar with names of PDF file attachments. Thus, similar with names of PDF file attachments text is used for link generation.; 5-b. Select “Go to a page in attachment” in link action type box.; 5-c. Optionally specify action parameters such as a destination page number and/or a zoom type.; 5-d. Enter a PDF document name to be linked. Make sure to include file extension.; 5-e. Click “OK” once done.
Step 6 - Add More Entries: Repeat steps 4-5 for each search term you want to add. In this tutorial we are going to add 5 entries - one for each PDF attachment.
Step 7 - Inspect Link Dictionary: Now you should see created search terms entries in the box. Verify that everything was configured correctly.; Click ‘OK” to proceed.
Step 8 - Save Link “Dictionary”: Click “Save” button to save the link “dictionary” entries.
Step 9 - Generate Links: Optionally click “Edit Appearance” to change link appearance.; Click “OK” to start generating links .
Step 10 - Examine the Results: The dialog reports total number of links created.; Click “OK” to close it.
Step 11 - Inspect the Links: The AutoBookmark™ plug-in has automatically generated links from all occurrences of words or phrases specified in the link dictionary.; For example, all occurrences of text “Highlights” in the PDF document are hyperlinked to the user-defined page in “Highlights.pdf” file attachment.
Step 12 - Create Bookmarks From Links: The next step is going to illustrate how to automatically create bookmarks out of links. Select "Plug-ins > Bookmarks > Create From Links..." from the main menu. This will open " Create Bookmarks From Links " dialog.
Step 13 - Configure Bookmarking Settings: Optionally specify bookmark processing options.; Click “OK” to start generating bookmarks from links.
Step 14 - Examine the Results: The dialog reports total number of bookmarks created.; Click “OK” to close it.
Step 15 - Inspect the Bookmarks: The AutoBookmark™ plug-in has automatically created bookmarks from the links. Text covered by a link annotation is used as a bookmark title. Bookmarks point to the same location as corresponding links. In this tutorial, the bookmarks point to pages in PDF file attachments. For example, "Appendix 1" bookmark points to Appendix 1.pdf file attachment, "Appendix 2" to Appendix 2.pdf and etc.