Add a TOC to a PDF Document with Evermap’s AutoBookmark

Our partner Evermap has recently released an update to their popular AutoBookmark tool which has me really excited!

AutoBookmark ($189 or $99 each in a 5 license pack) is an Acrobat plug-in (Windows only). It adds a menu item and a panel to Acrobat. A free trial is available if you want to check it out.

AutoBookmark is my go-to Acrobat plug-in tool for managing complex projects with a lot of bookmarks and links. You can easily copy bookmarks between files, create bookmarks from headings or Bates numbers and about a hundred other features.

It’s a great tool to have if you prepare sets of linked exhibit files in complicated cases.

The latest release of AutoBookmark can (ta-da!) create a Table of Contents from Bookmarks in your document.

Adding a TOC to your PDF makes it easier to navigate and it looks great, too. It’s a requirement when creating closing binders and final document sets.

Making Bookmarks

The first step will be to bookmark the pages in your file. Acrobat can generate bookmarks via the following methods:

• Automatically using the PDF Makers in Office applications
  • Headings 1-9 in Word
  • Worksheet Names in Excel
  • Slide Titles in PowerPoint
• Optionally, when Using Combine Files
  • A bookmark to each document name is created
• Manually
  • Navigate to a page in a PDF and create a bookmark (CTRL-B)

With AutoBookmark, there are a number of ways to create bookmarks automatically if your PDF doesn’t have them. Here are a few you can read about on the EverMap site:

Automatic bookmark generation from text content
Bookmark text from a user-defined search list
Bookmark text patterns
Creating bookmarks from links, text highlights, comments and destinations
Creating bookmarks from ASCII text files

Create a TOC in Seconds

With your bookmarked file open, you can create a TOC in a couple of clicks with AutoBookmark.

1. Inspect your Bookmarks to make sure they are what you want. Here is an example:
2. 
3. Choose Plugins> Table of Contents> Create from Bookmarks
   NOTE: This menu is installed by AutoBookmark and is not present unless you purchase AutoBookmark
4. 
5. The TOC window opens. You can set many options for font, color and size.
6. 
7. Click OK

The Resulting TOC

Awesome! In just seconds, I added a TOC to my PDF.

AutoBookmark created links to each of the bookmarked pages. If you change the PDF, you can delete the TOC and regenerate it easily. I tested PDFs with hundreds of bookmarks. In one case, I created a 21-page TOC.

Conclusion

AutoBookmark is a wonderful add-in tool for Acrobat. If you spend a lot of time bookmarking files and links or manually creating TOCs, this tool will pay for itself quickly!