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Sorting PDF Bookmarks and Pages

AutoBookmark for Adobe® Acrobat®

Introduction
This tutorial shows how to sort bookmarks and pages in PDF documents using the AutoBookmark™ plug-in for the Adobe® Acrobat®. The AutoBookmark plug-in provides two distinct sorting options:
These two powerful methods provide full control over bookmark and page order in PDF documents. The plug-in allows to sort bookmarks alphabetically, by date or by referencing page number. Individual bookmarks or whole bookmark levels can be sorted separately. The software also allows to sort document pages based on the bookmark order. The plug-in correctly handles page ranges (no need to bookmark every page) and quickly arranges pages into the desired order.
These operations are available in the Guided Actions (aka 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.
Sorting Bookmarks
Step 1 - Open a PDF File
Start the Adobe® Acrobat® application and open a PDF file with the bookmarks that need to be sorted using “File > Open…” menu.
Step 2 - Open the "Sort Bookmarks" Dialog
Select "Plugns > Bookmarks > Sort > Sort Bookmarks…" to open the "Sort Bookmarks" dialog. [⚡ How to locate Plugins menu in Adobe® Acrobat® ⚡]
Step 3 - Select Sorting Method
Select a sorting method from the "Method" menu:
  • - Alphabeticall Sorting (bookmarks are re-arranged according to their titles)
  • - By Referencing Page Number (bookmarks are re-arranged according to the page numbers they are referencing)
  • - As DD/MM/YYYY Dates
  • - As MM/DD/YYYY Dates
Use "Sorting By Dates" method for sorting bookmark titles that contain dates in the following formats: DD/MM/YYYY, DD/MM/YY, MM/DD/YYYY, MM/DD/YY, DD-MM-YYYY, DD-MM-YY, MM-DD-YYYY, MM-DD-YY. All other characters/numbers in the bookmarks are only used when comparing two identical dates. Bookmarks without date in the title are treated as 0/0/0000 date and are sorted accordingly.
Choose sorting method
Optionally, check Sort pages based on new bookmark order option to automatically sort pages in the document to conform to a new bookmark order. Pages in the PDF will be physically rearranged so their order matches the sequence of the bookmarks. After sorting, each bookmarked section appears in the same order in both the bookmark tree and the document itself.
Step 4 - Select Bookmark Level To Sort
Bookmarks can be sorted one level at the time with or without child bookmarks. Use the "Select bookmark level to sort" menu to select a bookmark level that needs to be sorted. "Level 1" is a top level of a bookmark tree.
Select bookmark level for sorting
Step 5 - Select Sorting Order
Check the "Ascending" or the "Descending" boxes to select a desired bookmark order. Optionally, check the "Sort child bookmarks" option to sort all child bookmark levels as well. For example, if "Level 1" is selected and the "Sort child bookmarks" option is ON, the all bookmarks at all levels are going to be sorted. Sorting is done separately within each nesting level and does not results in moving bookmarks into a different level. If "Level 1" is selected and the "Sort child bookmarks" option is OFF, then only top level bookmarks will be sorted. All child levels will be left as-is.
Click "OK" to sort bookmarks.
Select sorting order
Step 6 - Examine the Results
The software sorts bookmark titles in the current PDF document into a selected order. In the example below, the bookmarks have been alphabetically sorted in ascending order:
Examing results
Sorting Bookmarks By Referencing Page Number
Sorting bookmarks by referenced page number arranges the bookmarks in the order of the pages they point to in the PDF. This makes the bookmark tree follow the document's page sequence, regardless of how the bookmarks were originally organized.
Open the "Sort Bookmarks" dialog and select “By Referencing Page Number” from the "Method" menu to sort bookmarks by a referencing page number. Click "OK" to sort bookmarks.
Sorting by referenced page number
This method is only applicable to bookmarks that point to pages within the same document. Bookmarks that do not reference any page or do not contain any associated actions are ignored. However, these bookmarks can be moved up/down during the sorting operation. Here is the example of sorting bookmarks by a referencing page number in ascending order:
Handling bookmarks without page references
Sorting PDF Pages
The example below demonstrates how to reorder (move) pages in a PDF document to match the order of its bookmarks. This feature is useful when you want the physical page order to follow the bookmark hierarchy.
A common use case is assembling a single PDF from multiple documents when the final document order is not known in advance. Simply insert the pages from each source document into the combined PDF and create a bookmark that points to the first page of each inserted document. Once all files have been added, rearrange the bookmarks into the desired order and then sort the pages based on the bookmark order. The pages will be automatically moved so that the document matches the new bookmark sequence.
Step 1 - Open a PDF File
Start the Adobe® Acrobat® application and open a PDF file with the bookmarks using “File > Open…” menu.
Step 2 - Open the "Sorting Pages" Dialog
Select "Plug-Ins > Bookmarks > Sort > Sort Pages…" to open the "Sorting Pages" dialog.
[⚡ How to locate Plugins menu in Adobe® Acrobat® ⚡]
Step 3 - Sort Pages
Click "OK" to sort pages.
Press OK button to sort pages
Step 4 - Examine the Results
The order of pages will be changed to conform to the order they appear in the bookmark tree. There is a more detailed tutorial available: "Arranging PDF Pages using Bookmarks".
Examine the results
Auto-sorting PDF pages when moving bookmarks
AutoBookmark can automatically reorder pages when you drag and drop bookmarks in Acrobat's Bookmarks panel. This makes rearranging sections of a PDF as simple as moving a bookmark - all pages associated with that bookmark instantly shift to the correct position in the document. Since PDF bookmarks natively point to a single page, there is no built-in way to assign a page range to a bookmark directly. AutoBookmark works around this by treating each bookmark as the start of a section, spanning all pages from that bookmark up to the beginning of the next one. This allows entire sections of a PDF document to be moved as a single unit just by repositioning their bookmark.
Auto-Sort mode provides the following options that can be turned on/off separately:
  • Automatically sort pages when bookmark is moved in the Bookmarks panel.
  • Delete bookmark when a corresponding page is deleted.
  • Automatically sort pages when a new bookmark is inserted.
  • Automatically sort pages when an action of the existing bookmark is edited (for example, destination page is changed).
Please see a separate tutorial on this functionality.