Creating Bookmarks in Adobe Acrobat

If you work with PDF documents longer than a couple of pages, you really need some decent navigation. Yes, you can scroll through 300 pages if you really want to, but it can be tedious at best, and bloody annoying at worst!

To get the most out of Adobe Acrobat, and make your document easier to use, you need to create some bookmarks.

What are PDF Bookmarks?

On any given day, I’ll typically spend some time in the evening reading a novel, and maybe a business book of some sort. They don’t come with bookmarks, although a business book will at least have some sort of table of contents to help me find what I’m looking for.

That’s where bookmarks come into play. I can grab a paper bookmark, plain or decorated if I want, throw it into the page I want to come back to, and I’m done. Next time I grab my book, I can pick up exactly where I left off without needing to waste time trying to find my spot.

In the digital world, it’s even better, since I can add multiple bookmarks, then use them quickly to find my way around. Bookmarks can be used for more than simple navigation, they can contain links to websites and other external content, zoom in or out of specific parts of the document, and much more. In this article, I’ll be exploring basic bookmarks.

Steps for Creating Bookmarks in Adobe Acrobat

Let’s have a look at how to add a bookmark.

1. Open your document in Adobe Acrobat.
2. Go to the page you want to bookmark.
3. Click the bookmarks button on the right to open the bookmarks panel.
   
   
   
   Click on the New Bookmark button at the top of the panel.
4. Type a descriptive name for the bookmark.
5. Repeat these steps to add more bookmarks.

Now your bookmarks have been added, save the file, then in the Bookmarks panel, simply click on the bookmark you want to go to. You, or your readers, will be taken directly to the page you need.

Bonus Tip: Bookmarks can be nested to form a hierarchy, with main headings, subheadings and so on. This is particularly useful when working with long and complex documents. They make it easier to find exactly what you’re looking for. Nesting is done by creating normal bookmarks, then dragging the subheadings on to the parent bookmarks. Once this is done, the bookmarks can be collapsed or expanded as needed.