Bookmarks Panel and Page - Bookmarks Won't Always Appear

It may not be related to your document properties. It's possible that the machines that are not displaying the bookmarks have the following preference set Edit > Preferences > Documents > "Restore last view settings when reopening documents". In which case -- you cannot change the behavior.

Thank you for your help.

Unfortunately, some users do not have "Restore last view settings when reopening documents" selected, yet the trouble persists. Even on my computer, which is running Acrobat Professional 9.3.2, the bookmarks sometimes do not appear.

I should note that this is being viewed within the Firefox web browser. The document is stored on a web server (it is an employee manual) and even when it does work for me, if I press the back button, bringing me back to the web page, and then click on the link for the PDF file, it will sometimes come up with either no bookmarks in the left column or a thumbnail view in the left column.

It's driving me batty, and I am beginning to think it is just an oddity within Acrobat.

Have you tried specifying the page mode in the URL?

http://example.org/doc.pdf#pagemode=bookmarks

Thank you, Spoogie. I was not aware of this trick, and if it worked, it is an obvious way around my problem. However, I just tried it for the following URL, which has nothing to do with mine, but it did not seem to work. The following link is for a PDF with bookmarks, but when I apply the suffix

#pagemode=bookmarks

it does not seem to work. Here is the plain URL:

http://www.hhs.gov/web/508/pdfbookmarks.pdf

If you go to that, clicking the bookmarks button on the left margin invokes the bookmarks. However, if I specify the URL like this, it doesn't make them appear automatically:

http://www.hhs.gov/web/508/pdfbookmarks.pdf#pagemode=bookmarks

Is my syntax incorrect?

Hi Arturo,

Your syntax is fine, there are a heap of open parameters you can feed into the PDF:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/pdfs/pdf_open_parameters.pdf

I think they are a little bit flaky in the browser plug-in though.

Even if 'Preferences - Documents - Restore last view....' is turned off in Acrobat Reader, the browser version still remembers the last state so ignores the document default settings or the PDF open parameters (at least that is whats happening to me, I've seen lots of posts where the problem is the other way around).

Arturo,

From the first URL:
The "pdfbookmarks.pdf" file's Document Properties > Initial View tab > Navigation tab selection is:
"Page Only".


Try changing this to "Bookmarks Panel and Page".

Curious.
Why not provide the Normal Style with white space below (at least 7 points) rather than using the Enter key (while Normal is still in use) to provide white space between paragraphs?
Currently, with the Normal Style role mapped to the element, there is a element (aka ) with a blank space between each paragraph.
Open the Tags pane, expand the structure tree, and select Highlight Content.
Then walk the structure tree top down to see what I mean.

The change to "Heading 2 Char" takes away use of Word's built-in Heading 2.
This results in a "style" rather than a built-in "Heading" which becomes role mapped to the ILSE (for grouping) of . The document has , no , and then . Seems odd.Be well...

tracking on what Dave said, i see that your file lacks an essential setting: on file > properties [ctrl+D] > tab 'initial view' > 'navigation tab' be sure to select 'bookmarks panel and page'
alternative -- if you want to go fancy, you can make a button that will toggle (open/close) the bookmarks panel; create a button on tools > advanced editing and label it like 'show or hide bookmarks'; on action tab select a menu item 'view>navigation>panel>bookmarks'; size and format the button (text and background) in virtually any scheme. place where needed on the first page and 'duplicate' to all other pages.

One can even use the undocuented 'pane' propterty of the 'doc' object.

A value of 'N' will hide the navigation pane.
A value of 'B' will display the navigation pane.

Sorry for the confusion, but the PDF file I pointed to is not mine, it is merely an example I found using a Google search, that had bookmarks which I tried to render at once by applying the suffix: #pagemode=bookmarks

I am of the mind that, Adobe Acrobat, especially when rendering within a browser, is a little bit flaky and it will not work every time for every viewer, and I will just have to live with it.

In my PDF file, I have specified "Bookmarks Panel and Page," but for some people, no matter what they do, the bookmarks don't appear at once.

Thank you all very much for your help. I appreciate it very much.

Sorry for the confusion, but the PDF file I pointed to is not mine, it is merely an example I found using a Google search, that had bookmarks which I tried to render at once by applying the suffix: #pagemode=bookmarks

I am of the mind that, Adobe Acrobat, especially when rendering within a browser, is a little bit flaky and it will not work every time for every viewer, and I will just have to live with it.

In my PDF file, I have specified "Bookmarks Panel and Page," but for some people, no matter what they do, the bookmarks don't appear at once.

Thank you all very much for your help. I appreciate it very much.

Have you tried using an document level javasclript of:
this.pane = "Bookmarks";

Ah ha! finally found people with similar problem...
Acrobat Pro 9

I have 2 userguides.
They need to be accessed through link on screen of web based application.

Both originally word.doc

There is something more to the problem that is meeting our eyes so far.

The only difference between the 2 PDF files is the size of the file.
Both are created by clicking on Acrobat icon on the Word tool bar and selecting the PDF Opitions:
Create Bookmarks
Convert Word Headings to Bookmarks
Convert Word Bookmarks.

The resulting PDF files are exactly as we want them = There are bookmarks in the bookmark pannel and the table of contents links are also active.

Each PDF file then has its properties for the Initial View set as:
Naviagation tab: Bookmarks Panel and Page
Page Layout: Single Page Continuous
Magnification: Fit Height
Open to page: 1

When we call these pdfs through a browser displayed link locally from our individual workstations, they both open up perfectly.

When we call these pdfs through a browser displayed link from our DEVELOPMENT server using the development version of the application, they both open up perfectly.

When we call these pdfs through a browser displayed link from our TEST server and our PRODUCTION server using the TEST version and the DEVELOPMENT version of the application, the smaller size file opens perfectly, the larger file opens not displaying the bookmarks.

We have tried using the parameters in the link call without setting the Initial Display properties in the files
and
with just the Initial Display properties set in the files and no parameters in the link call
and
with the Initial Display properties set in the files and parameters in the link call
and
THE SAME THINK HAPPENS EVERY TIME.
The smaller file (430KB) opens up and displays exactly as specified with the Bookmarks displayed
and
The larger file (2,182KB) opens up not displaying the Bookmark

There are several of us that have tested this and everyone has the same results.

If it had something to do with Reader preference settings then both files should have the same display problems...

So what is left, but to wonder if it isn't something to do with the server settings??????

Any one have a clue????

I have seen seen several postings about bookmarking issues. I have tried the solutions suggested (except programming) and here is the problem I am having with AAP9.

I have scanned the documents. I then bookmarked them. Changed the initial view for "Bookmarks Panel and Page" to always show up.

If I open the file up through the File-History process they seem to be opening up. But if I try to open up through the desktop folder where the documents are actually saved then the bookmark will not show. I then check to see if the "Bookmarks Panel and Page" is selected and it is.

I am not very savvy when it comes to tech talk, but I would love some help to get this corrected. Feel free to email me directly: michael [at] lakelanddocumentsolutions [dot] comThanks Much!

See Entering Document Scripts by Thom Parker for instructions on entering document level scripts. You can name your script "Initialize" and use the following text for the code:this.pane = "Bookmarks";

For years, I have had my page thumbnails on the left pane. Now, it is just bookmarks. The page thumbnails will only open in a window that moves around. I need them stationary on the left. I can't figure out how to get them set back there.

Hello, just found this topic, I am also having the same issue described here. I have tried all the suggestions mentioned above including this doc level javascript but it does not help. Works great with the stand alone Reader but now in a browser.

Like the other poster, I also have 2 similarly created files in which one is much larger (more pages) than the other and the smaller one opens with bookmarks but the larger one does not. I really don't know if size matters or not but thought I would mention it. Once it has been opened and you have clicked on the bookmarks icon to open the bookmarks pane all subsequent openings of the file open with bookmarks but not the first time. This in Windows IE7. Very frustrating.

Any other ideas?

Hard to say. I have PDF's set to open to a specific page and that has stopped working. Since the page is bookmarked to open the page, I added a document level script to execute the bookmark.

There could be some conflict between the web browser and the plug-in, a timing difference of some kind, or a communication issue that is causing some settings actions to be lost. The larger the file the more likely the issue is a timing issue.