Customizing Table of Contents Title in PDF Documents

AutoBookmark plug-in for Adobe® Acrobat®

Introduction

This tutorial shows how to customize table of contents (TOC) titles in PDF documents created by the AutoBookmark™ plug-in for the Adobe® Acrobat®. This tutorial focuses entirely on title customization, see the following tutorial for the instructions on how to automatically generate table of contents from PDF bookmarks or from a plain text file.

There are two ways to customize a TOC title:

• Customizing TOC Title with Document Properties
• Customizing TOC Title with Acrobat JavaScript

Use the first method if you need to insert document metadata properties into the TOC title. The standard (such as document "Title" or "Author")  and custom document metadata properties can be used. Use "File > Properties" menu in the Adobe® Acrobat® to view, edit or add custom document properties. Properties are commonly used to specify document's title, subject and author.

The example below shows a 3-line title that is generated using "Title", "Author" and "Subject" properties with each line using a different text style:

For more complex customizations, use Acrobat JavaScript scripting method to change both the content and the visual appearance of the title. The script can use all functionality provided by the Acrobat JavaScript language to compose the text of the title. It can utilize metadata properties, file names, form fields text, bookmarks and any other element of the PDF document.

Note that that customization with metadata and JavaScript is not available when generating a master TOC for multiple PDF documents, because there is no single PDF that can be used to extract the properties from. However, all style keywords are available for the master TOC.

This operation is available in the Action Wizard (Acrobat's batch processing tool) with the AutoBookmark™ Pro plug-in 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.

Customizing TOC Title with Document Properties

Open "Create TOC From Bookmarks" Tool

Open PDF document and make sure it contains bookmarks (necessary for TOC generation). Verify that document has digital Bates numbers generated in Adobe Acrobat.

Select "Plug-Ins > Table of Contents > Create TOC From Bookmarks…" to open the "Table Of Contents Settings" dialog.

[⚡ How to locate Plugins menu ⚡].

Locating "Create TOC From Bookmarks..." menu in "New" Acrobat interface:

Locating "Create TOC From Bookmarks..." menu in "Classic" Acrobat interface:

Customize TOC Title with Metadata Properties

Type any combination of regular text and special keywords into the "Title:" box located on the "Style" tab of the "Table Of Contents Settings" dialog. There is a set of supported keywords that are used to insert document's metadata properties into the title. Keywords are surrounded by curly brackets {...}.

Using Document Properties

The standard document properties such as Author, Subject, Title, Keywords, Creator, Producer, CreationDate, ModDate are accessible via the "Description" tab of the "Document Properties" dialog (use "File > Properties" menu in Adobe Acrobat to access it). Only Author, Title, Subject, and Keywords properties are editable. The rest of the properties are automatically set at the time the document is created or modified. Use "Custom" tab to add custom properties to the PDF document. Both standard and custom properties can be used in the TOC title. Note that property names are case-sensitive.

Standard PDF Metadata Properties:

• {Title}
• {Author}
• {Subject}
• {Keywords}
• {Creator}
• {Producer}
• {CreationDate}
• {ModDate}

For example, type {Title} by {Author} text into the "Title:" box. It will combine "Title" and "Author" metadata properties into a custom title. This expression can produce custom titles such as "Reference Manual by John Doe" or, as in the example below, "Acrobat PDF Consultant by Adobe Developer Support".

Customizing Text Style

It is possible to change a text color and font size within the title string, but only on the per-line basis. It means only a single color and text font can be used within a single line of text, although text can overflow into multiple lines if the it does not fit into the space available. Multiple different keywords can be used on the same line. The position of the keyword within the line does not matter. It can appear anywhere in the text. Note that all keywords apply only to a single line of text and revert to the default title style on the next line.

Use {fontsize:XX} to change the font size of the current font to the value of XX, where XX is any integer that represents a valid font size. For example, "{fontsize:20}" - sets the font size to 20 pt.

Use {textcolor:R,G,B} to set a custom text color for the text, where R, G and B are numbers between 0 and 255. These numbers represent intensity of the Red, Green and Blue components of the color. For example, {textcolor:0,0,255} - sets the color of the text to blue.

Use {fontname:Font Name} to change font for the current text line. For example, {fontname: Segoe UI Black} - sets the "Segoe UI Black" as a current font.

Here is the example of the TOC title with the multiple keywords string {Title}{fontsize:20}{textcolor:0,0,255}{fontname: Segoe UI Black}:

Adding Horizontal Divider

Use {drawline:T,Y} to draw a horizontal line from the left to the right margin. Parameters: T - is a line thickness in points (1 inch is 72 points), Y - is a vertical offset of the line from the current text baseline also measured in points. It can be positive or negative. Positive offset moves the line below the text line, while negative moves the line above it. The line is drawn using a current text color.

For example, type {drawline:4,10}{Title} to draw a line 4 pt thick with a vertical offset of 10 points. It will output TOC title with a line draw 10 points below the text baseline.

Multi-Line Table of Contents

The following example uses various keywords to customize a multi-line table of contents with different text styles and a horizontal divider:

Table of Contents
{fontsize:16}{fontname:Segoe UI Black Italic}{Title}
{drawline:10,0}{fontsize:8}{textcolor:0,128,255}

Here is the resulting output:

Generate Table of Contents

Specify the rest of the settings and click "OK" to generate table of contents.

Here is a sample output using the following settings. Note that the title is completely based on document's metadata properties (Title and Author):

{Title}
{fontsize:15}{fontname:Segoe UI Black Italic}{Author}
{drawline:10,0}{fontsize:8}{textcolor:0,128,255}

Customizing TOC Title with Acrobat JavaScript

Step 1 - Open the "Table Of Contents Settings" Dialog

Start the Adobe® Acrobat® application and open a PDF document with bookmarks using "File > Open..." menu.

Select "Plug-Ins > Table of Contents > Create TOC from Bookmarks..." in the main menu to open the "Table Of Contents Settings" dialog.

Step 2 - Customize TOC Title with Acrobat JavaScript

Click the "Customize..." button located on the "Style" tab of the "Table Of Contents Settings" dialog.

Check the "Use Acrobat JavaScript scripting to customize TOC title" option and type the JavaScript code into the text box. Click "OK" once done.

Using a File Name in the Title

The following sample script assigns the file name (with extension) to the TOC title:

event.value = this.documentFileName;

Using Document Properties

The following code is using values of standard "Title" and "Author" metadata properties to build a custom TOC title. It can produce titles such as: "Reference Manual by John Doe" or, in the example, "Acrobat PDF Consultant by Adobe Developer Support".

event.value = this.title + " by " + this.author;

Using Bookmarks

The following code is using the title of the first bookmark as a title for the TOC.

event.value = this.bookmarkRoot.children[0].name;

Using Page Count

The following code combines value of the "Title" metadata property with the page count to create a custom title. It can produce titles such as "Reference Manual (100 pages)" or, in the example, "Adobe PDF Consultant (58 pages)":

event.value = this.title + " (" + this.numPages + " pages)";

Using Multiple Lines

The following code shows how to display TOC title on 3 separate text lines. Use \n to insert a new line. Each metadata property is displayed starting from a new line.

event.value = this.title + "\n" + this.author + "\n" + this.creationDate;

Changing Text Style

It is possible to change a text color, font name and font size within the title string, but only on the per-line basis. It means only a single color and text font can be used within a single line of text, although text can overflow into multiple lines if the it does not fit into the space available. One or more of different keywords can be used on the same line. The position of the keyword within the line does not matter. It can appear anywhere in the text.

Use {fontsize:XX} to change the font size of the current font to the value of XX, where XX is any integer that represents a valid font size. For example, "{fontsize:20}" - sets the font size to 20 pt.

Use {textcolor:R,G,B} to set a custom text color for the text, where R, G and B are numbers between 0 and 255. These numbers represent intensity of the Red, Green and Blue components of the color. For example, {textcolor:0,0,255} - sets the color of the text to blue.

Use {fontname:Font Name} to change font for the current text line. For example, {fontname: Segoe UI Black} - sets the "Segoe UI Black" as a current font.

The following script creates 3 lines of text for the TOC title. The first line is using a default font style, the second line overrides the text size (sets it to 10) and the third line changes the text color to red.

event.value = "Title\n{fontsize:10}Text size 10\n{textcolor:255,0,0}Red color";

Adding Horizontal Divider

The following script draws a horizontal line from left to right margin. Parameters: T - is a line thickness in points (1 inch is 72 points), Y - is a vertical offset of the line from the current text baseline also measured in points. The line is drawn using a current text color.

event.value = "{drawline:T,Y}";

For example, use the following script to draw a line 4 pt thick with vertical offset of 10 points. It will output Table of Contents title with a line draw 10 points below the text baseline.

event.value = "{drawline:4,10}Table of Contents";

The following script creates 2 lines of text and draws a blue divider afer a second line:

event.value = "Table of Contents\nTerms and definitions{drawline:4,10}{textcolor:0,0,255}";

Step 3 - Generate Table of Contents

Specify the rest of the settings and click "OK" to generate table of contents.

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