Adding Leading Numbers To PDF Bookmarks

Adding/Removing Leading Numbers to/from PDF Bookmarks

Introduction: This tutorial shows how to automatically add or remove leading numbers to PDF bookmarks using any combination of digits, letters and Roman numerals using the AutoBookmark™ plug-in for the Adobe® Acrobat®.; This operation is also available in the Action Wizard tool, and can be used for batch processing of multiple documents at once.
Prerequisites: You need a copy of the Adobe® Acrobat® along with the AutoBookmark™ plug-in installed on your computer in order to use this tutorial. You can download trial versions of both the Adobe® Acrobat® and the AutoBookmark™ plug-in.

Step 1 - Open a PDF File

Start the Adobe® Acrobat® application and using "File > Open..." menu open a PDF file that need to be processed. Make sure that the document actually has bookmarks.

Step 2 - Open the "Add/Remove Leading Numbers" Dialog

Select "Plug-Ins > Bookmarks > Modify Bookmarks > Add/Remove Leading Numbers..." to open the "Add/Remove Leading Numbers" dialog.

Step 3 - Specify the Processing Levels

Check the "Add leading numbers to the bookmarks" option if you want to automatically add the leading numbers to the bookmarks. The leading numbers can be added to a user-defined range of bookmark levels. Enter a starting and ending bookmark levels into the corresponding boxes. Level 1 corresponds to the top most bookmark level.

Step 4 - Select Numbering Options

Optionally, select any of the following options:

Do not add numbers to top level bookmarks without any child bookmarks;
Do not add numbers to the bookmarks without any child bookmarks;
Include parent numbering into child bookmarks.

This is an example when all options are unchecked:

Check the "Include parent numbering into child bookmarks" option to include parent bookmarks numbering in front of their child bookmarks. This is an example with this option option turned on:

Check the "Do not add numbers to top level bookmarks without any child bookmarks" option to exclude top level bookmarks (i.e. Level 1 bookmarks) from numbering if the bookmarks do not have any child bookmarks. Below is an example with this option turned on. Note that "Introduction", "Common Issues", "Glossary" and "Index" bookmarks are not numbered. These are top level bookmarks without any child bookmarks.

Check the "Do not add numbers to the bookmarks without any child bookmarks" option to skip bookmarks (at any level), if they have no child bookmarks. Below is an example with this option turned on. Note that "Introduction", "Herbs", "Flowers", "Bonsai", "Cactus" and other bookmarks without child bookmarks are not numbered and have no effect on the overall bookmark numbering order.

Step 5 - Select Numbering Styles

Each bookmark level can have a separate numbering style. There are 5 pull-down menus available. One for each bookmark level. Use any combination of the 5 different numbering styles:

Digits (for example: 4.1.15.)
Lower case Roman numerals (for example: iii.2. or xii.v.ii)
Upper case Roman numerals (for example: XII.I. or V.III.
Lower case letters (for example: 1.a.2. or b.1.1.)
Upper case letters (for example: A.5. or C.16.)

Note that the style for the 5th level is used for all lower levels (6th, 7th and etc.).

Step 6 - Specify Auto-Removing Options

Note that leading numbers can be removed with or without adding new leading numbers. This is convenient when it is necessary to re-generate numbers after modifying the bookmarks.

There are multiple options for automatic removal of existing leading numbers from the bookmark text. There are separate options for removing digits, Roman numerals and letters. The removal operation is always applied prior to adding new leading numbers.

Check the "Remove existing leading digits from bookmarks" option to automatically remove leading digits. For example, if bookmarks contains "2.1.3. Applications" text, then this option will produce the following output – "Applications".

Check the "Remove existing leading Roman numerals" option to automatically remove leading numbers that are Roman numerals. For example, if bookmarks contains "III.V.X. Summary" text, then this option will produce the following output – "Summary".

Check the "Remove existing leading numbering with letters" option to automatically remove leading numbers that use lower and upper case letters. For example, if bookmarks contains "A.b. Summary" text, then this option will produce the following output – "Summary".

All 3 options can be used together to remove all kinds of leading numbers. For example, if all 3 options are checked, then if bookmarks contains "VII.a.3. Materials and Methods" text, then the output will be just "Materials and Methods". This is an example of removing leading numbers from bookmarks with all options turn on:

Step 7 - Start the Process

Click "OK" to start adding/removing leading numbers to/from PDF bookmarks.

Step 8 - Examine the Results

The software automatically adds/removes leading numbers to/from bookmarks in a PDF document. The changes are immideately visible in the Bookmarks panel:

You can find a list of other step-by-step tutorials here: https://www.evermap.com/tutorialsList.asp.