Creating PDF Bookmarks from Comments and Highlights
Introduction
This tutorial shows how to automatically bookmark notes, comments, text highlights, underlines and strikeouts in a PDF document using the AutoBookmark™ plug-in for the Adobe® Acrobat®. The following annotation types can be selectively bookmark:
  • Highlight
  • Underline
  • Crossout
  • Sticky note
  • Text comment
  • File annotation
  • Popup note
  • Rectangle
  • Other types (such as links or various drawing annotations)
The plug-in uses text behind each annotation or the text content of the comment for a bookmark title. The bookmarks will point to the locations of corresponding annotations. Bookmark color can be optionally inherited from the originating annotation.
Creating PDF bookmarks from comments and highlights
This operation is also available in the Action Wizard (Acrobat's batch processing tool) and can be used for automating of document processing workflows.
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 Document
Start the Adobe® Acrobat® application and open a PDF document to be processed using "File > Open..." menu.
Open a PDF document
Step 2 - Open the "Bookmark Comments and Highlights" Dialog
Select "Plug-Ins > Bookmarks > Create From Comments and Highlights..." from the main menu to open the "Bookmark Comments and Highlights" dialog.
Open the Bookmark Comments and Highlights dialog
Step 3 - Select Annotation Types to Bookmark
Select one or more annotation types to bookmark.
Select desired annotation types
Check the "Highlight" option to bookmark highlighted text:
Check the Highlight option
Check the "Underline" option to bookmark underlined text:
Check the Underline option
Check the "Crossout" option to bookmark crossout text:
Check the Crossout option
Check the "Sticky note" option to bookmark sticky notes annotations and use the comment text for the bookmark title:
Check the Sticky note option
Check the "Text comments" option to bookmark comments:
Check the Text comments option
Check the "File annotation" option to bookmark file annotations:
Check the File annotation option
Check the "Popup notes" option to bookmark popup notes annotations:
Check the Popup notes option
Check the "Rectangle" option to bookmark annotations in rectangles:
Check the Rectangle option
Check the "All other types" option to bookmark other annotation types (for example, links):
Check the All other types option
Step 4 - Specify Bookmark Processing Options
Check the "Inherit bookmark color from annotation style" option to use annotation style color for the bookmark title.
Check the "Determine bookmark levels from markup type (Highlight/Underline/Crossout)" option to create multiple-level bookmarks.
Specify the number of characters to limit bookmark title length.
Specify bookmark processing options
Step 5 - Start the Bookmark Generation
Optionally, specify processing page range by clicking the "Edit Page Range..." button.
Click "OK" to start the bookmark generation.
Start bookmark generation
Step 6 - Inspect the Results
Click "OK" to close the reporting dialog.
Close the reporting dialog
In the tutorial we have created 3-level (Highlight/Underline/Crossout) hierarchy bookmark tree using annotation style color for bookmark titles.
Inspect the results
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