Creating Table Of Contents From PDF Bookmarks

AutoBookmark plug-in for Adobe® Acrobat®

Introduction

This tutorial shows how to generate a table of contents (TOC) for a PDF document from bookmarks using the AutoBookmark™ plug-in for the Adobe® Acrobat®. The hierarchical table of contents is created from bookmarks by inserting new pages into corresponding PDF document or saving TOC as a separate PDF document. Each TOC entry has the same hyperlink as a corresponding bookmark.

Table of contents (TOC) generation is available in the following modes:

1. Generating TOC for a single PDF document and:

Inserting it into document itself (internal TOC);

Creating table of contents as a separate PDF document (external TOC). TOC document entries are linked to the original PDF document.

The following diagrams illustrate the difference between internal and external table of contents:

2. Generating "Master" TOC for multiple PDF documents and saving it as a separate PDF document.

This operation is also available in the Action Wizard (the 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.

Quick Links:

• How To Create Table Of Contents For A Single PDF Document
• How To Create Master Table Of Contents For Multiple PDF Documents
• How To Specify Table Of Contents Generation Options
• How To Delete Table Of Contents From A PDF Document

Creating Table Of Contents for a Single PDF Document ^↑overview

Step 1 - Open a PDF File

Start the Adobe® Acrobat® application and using "File > Open…" menu open a PDF file that contains bookmarks or create bookmarks using any of the available methods.

Step 2 - Open The "Table Of Contents Settings" Dialog

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:

Step 3 - Specify Table Of Contents Generation Mode

Select the "General" tab in the "Table Of Contents Settings" dialog.

Choose to create either internal (TOC is inserted into current document at specific page location) or external table of contents (TOC is saved as a separate PDF document and links back to pages in the current PDF document).

Select the "Insert table of contents as …" option to insert table of contents into existing PDF document (internal TOC) and specify a page number where to insert new pages. Optionally, specify table of contents generation options - Click here to know how to specify table of contents generation options. Click "OK" to generate the table of contents.

Select the "Save table of contents as separate PDF document" option to create an external TOC. Table of contents will be generated as a separate PDF document and source file is not going to be modified.

Click "OK" button to run processing.

Step 4 - Examine the Results

Inspect the results (internal TOC example). Table of contents is now inserted into the currently open document. We have used default settings and resulting TOC looks clean but fairly simple.

We can customize title/header for the table of contents to produce better looking document. The following result used a multi-line title with horizontal bar and text extracted from the document's metadata properties:

You can get these results by entering the following text into the Title field:

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

Refer to the following tutorial for customization examples: https://evermap.com/Tutorial_ABM_CustomizingTOCTitle.asp.

Here is an example of the external TOC. It is saved as a separate PDF document. Each TOC entry is linked back to the main document. Once clicked, the reader will be taken to the page in the original PDF document.

How To Create Master Table Of Contents For Multiple PDF Documents ^↑overview

Step 1 - Prepare PDF Documents

Prepare PDF documents that need to be included into a "master" TOC document. Make sure that all documents have bookmarks by using any of the available methods. . It is possible to use only specific bookmark levels for TOC generation. It is generally a good idea to have all files in the same project folder. Organize files into subfolders if necessary.

Step 2 - Open The "Create Master TOC File for Multiple PDF Documents" Tool

Start the Adobe® Acrobat® application. Select "Plug-Ins > Table of Contents > Create Master TOC File for Multiple Documents…" to open the "Create Master TOC File for Multiple PDF Documents" Tool.

Locating menu in the new Acrobat interface:

Locating menu in the "classic" Acrobat interface:

Step 3 - Add Files

Press the "Add Files..." button to select PDF files that need to be included into master TOC.

Select one or more input PDF document(s) and click "Open". You can select multiple documents by pressing and holding Ctrl key while selecting files in the "Open" dialog.

Add more PDF files if necessary. All selected PDF files will be added to the "Input PDF Files" list. If a document is password-protected or does not have the bookmarks, then it will be marked with a red icon. PDF documents without bookmarks will be skipped during the processing.

Step 4 - Specify Location Of The Output Master TOC File

Press the "Browse..." button to select a location of the output master TOC file. Typically, a master TOC is placed into the same project folder as the input files. IMPORTANT: Master TOC file should always maintain the same relative positon to input PDF files to maintain correct links. If you need to move files, then move them altogether including a master TOC file. Moving TOC file without moving source PDF files will break the hyperlinks.

Specify location of the output master TOC file and click "Save".

Step 5 - Edit TOC Generation Options (Optionally)

Optionally, press the "Edit TOC Generation Options" button to specify table of contents generation options. Click here to know how to specify table of contents generation options.

Step 6 - Start Generating Master TOC Document

Click "OK" to start generating a master TOC document.

Step 7 - Examine the Results

The dialog will report the results. Click "OK" to open the resulting master TOC.

The table of contents is generated based on bookmarks from multiple PDF documents and is hyperlinked to point to original PDF files:

Specifying Table Of Contents Generation Options ^↑overview

Specify TOC Appearance Options

The appearance of the table of contents can be customized through the "Table Of Contents Settings" dialog. There is a number of different styles that can be applied to the title, chapter titles (entries that have sub-items), headings, page numbers and visual appearance of the links.

Specify TOC Style (The "Style" Tab)

Select the "Style" tab.

The software provides selection of separate text styles to use for generating various parts of table of contents. Choose a separate font, text size and color for the TOC title and 4 levels of the headings. Press the "Set All…" button to set a text style for all levels at once.

Click "OK" in the dialog to set the same style for all levels.

Select font name, font size and text color. Click "OK" once done.

Optionally, text color for each entry in the TOC can be inherited from a corresponding bookmark. If this is necessary, then check "Inherit text color from bookmarks" checkbox.

Set Title/Header

Type the TOC title in the "Title" text field. TOC Title is one or more lines that appear at the top of the table of contents.

Refer to the following tutorial if you want to customize content and appearance of the TOC title: https://evermap.com/Tutorial_ABM_CustomizingTOCTitle.asp.

Set Line Spacing and Level Offset

Press "Spacing..." button to customize line spacing and level offset.

Saving Settings into File

Use "Save Settings…" and "Load Settings…" buttons to save and load settings into the settings file for a later reuse or sharing with other users. Settings are saved into a file with *.toc extension.

Specify TOC Page Dimensions And Bookmark Levels To Use (The "General" Tab)

Select the "General" tab.

The software can either automatically select a desired page size and orientation for TOC pages (based on the dimensions of the first page in the current PDF document) or use a user-specified page size. Page margins can be individually customized as well.

Select a range of bookmark levels that should be used for generating a table of contents. Bookmarks without actions can be optionally skipped. This feature provide a way to exclude certain bookmark levels from TOC. Optionally, check the option to add a bookmark to the first page of the TOC.

Specify TOC Page Numbering Options and Style (The "Page Numbering" Tab)

Select the "Page Numbering" tab.

Check the "Add page numbers to the table of content entries" option to display page numbers in the TOC entries. If this option is unchecked, then page numbers are not included into the table of contents.

Select page numbering type. The software provides 5 different options for TOC page numbers:

• Page Labels - page labels as displayed in the "Page Thumbnails" navigation panel and in the "current page number" box in the Adobe® Acrobat®. Page labels can contain any kind of text, not only decimal numbers.
• Page Numbers (Auto-Compute Page Offset) - physical page numbers (starting from 1) for all pages of the document including the generated table of contents. This mode automatically computes number of pages in the table of contents and adjust page numbers to reflect it. Use this mode when it is necessary to get a continuous page numbering for the whole document.
• Original Page Numbers - physical page numbers (starting from 1) for the pages before the table of contents is inserted into the document. If this option is selected, then it is possible to specify a "Page Offset". Page offset is an integer number (positive or negative) that will be added to the original page numbers before displaying in the table of contents. Use this parameter to perform any necessary adjustments to the page numbering.
• Bates Numbers (If Present) - bates numbers are special kind of identification numbers that can be added to PDF pages by the "Add Bates Numbering" function in the Adobe® Acrobat®. If there are no Bates numbers assigned to the pages, then the corresponding page number will be blank.
• Destinations (If Present) - if bookmarks are using named destinations to point to pages, then it is possible to use destinations as "page numbers" in the TOC entries. This is a very flexible method that provides a way to use custom text for page labeling. It is especially useful, when it is necessary to use "logical" page numbers that are different from "physical" ones.

Select leader style. The "Reserved area width for page numbers" is a parameter that controls how much area on the page is allocated for displying page numbers. The heading text will automatically wrap once it reached this offset from the right margin of the page. Increase this number to control where the heading text is wrapped.

There are multiple different styles available for displaying leader:

Select the method of labelling TOC pages:

There are 5 different methods how TOC pages can be labeled. Page labels are shown in the "Page Thumbnails" navigation panel and in the "current page number" box in the Adobe® Acrobat®. Page labels can contain any kind of text, not only decimal numbers. TOC pages use a separate from the rest of the document page labelling scheme, because TOC pages are automatically generated and potentially can be updated later.

Optionally, a text prefix can be added before auto-incrementing numbers.

Specify TOC Advanced Options (The "Advanced" Tab)

Select the "Advanced" tab that provides number of ways to customize appearance and functionality of the table of contents.

Check the "Run Acrobat JavaScript Code on the table of contents pages" option to run a script on TOC pages. This is an advanced option that requires knowledge of the Acrobat® JavaScript scripting language. It provides a wide range of customization capabilities.

Check the "Insert pages at the start of TOC" option to insert a PDF document in front of every table of contents. Use this option to insert cover pages or any other additional content. Use the "Browse…" button to select a PDF file to insert.

Check the "Add background to all TOC pages" option to insert a page from PDF document as a background for all TOC pages. The first page of the selected PDF document will be placed behind text content on every TOC page. Use the "Browse…" button to select a PDF file to use as a background.

Here are examples of the TOC with background PDF added:

How To Delete Table Of Contents From A PDF Document ^↑overview

The software can automatically find existing TOC pages (generated by the AutoBookmark™) in the current PDF document and remove/replace them.

Step 1 - Open a PDF File

Start the Adobe® Acrobat® application and using "File > Open…" menu open a PDF file with existing TOC pages.

Step 2 - Delete Table Of Contents

Select "Plug-Ins > Table of Contents > Delete TOC…" to delete existing TOC pages.

The confirming dialog will appear. Click "OK" to confirm TOC pages deletion.

Step 3 - Examine the Results

The dialog will report the results. Click "OK" to close it. Examine the results.

The software has searched and deleted existing TOC pages from the current document.

You can find a list of other step-by-step bookmarking tutorials here: http://www.evermap.com/abm_bm_summary.asp#tutorials.