SAMHSA's Section 508 Resources

Working With Bookmarks in Acrobat

Why are Bookmarks important to accessibility?

Bookmarks, headings, a table of contents, and a preset tab order for form fields are navigation aids that assist all users in using the utilizing the document without having to read through the entire document, word by word. Bookmarks are especially useful and can be created from document headings.

How do I check to see if Bookmarks exist in my document?

To check whether bookmarks exist in your document. Select the View menu, then scroll down to the Navigation Panels and hold the cursor until you see another menu box open. Select the Bookmark option. A navigation panel will open up to the left of your document, if Bookmarks are present they will be revealed

How do I add Bookmarks to my PDF document (if none exists)?

Bookmarks act as a table of contents in a PDF file, allowing users to quickly navigate a PDF. Who has time to scroll through 90 pages in a PDF file to find chapter 3? For PDF files larger than two pages, add bookmarks to the file.

Bookmarks will automatically be created from the source document, if the Word source document contained a table of contents (if generated correctly), the table of contents will display in the Bookmarks pane.

To create bookmarks, open the Bookmark Panel (View > Navigation Panels > Bookmarks or select the Bookmark icon in the navigation pane). Use one of the following methods:

1. Add bookmarks based on document structure - the easiest method!
   1. If the PDF file is tagged, use the structure to create the bookmarks automatically
   2. In the Bookmark pane, select the Options menu
   3. Choose New Bookmarks from Structure
      
      
      
      
   4. The Structure Elements dialog box displays - select the elements you want to convert (and create new bookmarks).
   5. Select OK
      
      
      
2. The second method you can use is to create bookmarks from selected text in the PDF file. To do this, follow these instructions.
   1. Use the Select tool from the Select and Zoom toolbar
      
      
      
      
      
   2. Using the Select and Zoom toolbar, select the text you want to use as the title for the new Bookmark
      
      
      
      
   3. Select the New Bookmark icon on the Bookmarks pane toolbar (or in the Options menu select New Bookmark) to add the text
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
3. The third method to creating BookMarks is to add blank bookmarks and fill them in manually - most time consuming
   1. In the existing bookmarks, click the location above where you want to add a new bookmark
   2. Select the New Bookmark icon on the Bookmarks pane toolbar or in the Options menu, select New Bookmark
   3. The bookmark will be created with the default text "Unititled"
   4. Enter the text for the bookmark
      

 

 

Last Update: 2/7/2009