Acrobat X and Word 2010 not coverting TOC to bookmarks.

Well I thought I would leave an update as to what I have since found out about this issue. I spent a while with an Adobe Acrobat representative on their online chat session and after checking out my document thoroughly, both the Word and the PDF, and, after they tried it themselves, apparently, creating a TOC in Word will not automatically create corresponding bookmarks in the pdf. The only way to do this they say, is to create all the bookmarks in Word manually. Of course doing so could potentially be very time consuming especially with long documents and to me, defeats the purpose. This was a feature, both creating the TOC and the pdf, which used to only take minutes to do.

Personally I see this as a step backward for Acrobat and since it was a feature I used all the time, I am going to revert back to version 9.

If what I was told by this rep was incorrect, please let me know.

Thanks.

Here are a few things to try:

Can you check on the Adobe PDF Ribbon bar > Preferences

Select "Word" tab and enable:
- Convert Cross References and Table of Contents to Links
- Enable Advanced Tagging

Before creating the PDF Check to make sure you've Turned Off any markup Review > Track Changes Show Markup. If you have added any 3rd party macros in MS Office (besides the Adobe PDFMaker) you might try disabling them.

Try deleting your Normal.dot template, Word should re-create it on launch.

One final question, are you running Office 2010 in 64-bit by any chance? If so, you need to update to 10.1 in order for PDFMaker to function:
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/882/cpsid_88296.php

Let me know if any of these resolve the links...

TOC Entries from Word have always converted to PDF, unless this is a new issue with Office 2010. I haven't seen complaints about it on the message boards, so there must be a setting we're missing. Please try the 3 steps above and let me know if any of them help.

Hi, thanks for your reply.

I am running Acrobat 10.1.1 but applied the patch anyway as I am on 64bit. I deleted the Normal.dot template and checked the setting you mentioned in Word which were also already selected except for one. I do not have an option "Convert Cross Reference and Table of Contents to Links" option. I checked with a colleague that is still using Word 2007 and Acrobat 9 and they also did not have that option. As a note, I also had them try to create the pdf and the TOC did not show up for them either.

Unfortunately none of your suggestions worked. I have also found a document with a TOC/hyperlinks in InDesign also did not convert to bookmarks in the pdf.

On my internet search to resolve this problem I have come across a few complaints of others having this issue but it wasn't always with Acrobat X and Word 2010 but with earlier versions as well. The solutions they received have not resolved my issue unfortunately but, I also wonder if it is a setting somewhere maybe within Acrobat.

Thanks

Sorry the "Convert Cross Reference and Table of Contents to Links" was for Word 2003.

The settings have to be correct in Word for the links to carry over, so there is only one setting that you can change in Acrobat that can cause links to not work:

Edit > Preferences
Click the category "Documents"
PDF/A View Mode" choose "Never" from the dropdown menu

One more setting to check in Word, Go back to your table of contents and open the Insert Table of Contents dialog box. Check the Use Hyperlinks Instead of Page Numbers.

As far as hyperlinks in InDesign from InDesign, I do this all the time and they do work. You have to be sure that when you choose Layout > Table of Contents, create PDF bookmarks is checked. Also, you must use File > Export to create the PDF and check Links and Bookmarks in the General tab. Printing to the PDF Printer or any other method will not include the links & bookmarks.

Nope, sorry, it still won't work. I made the change in Acrobat but no luck. As for Word and InDesign, all of the settings you mentioned were already done. I too do this all the time but with the update to both programs, it now will just not work.

Perhaps a re-install of both programs??

Do links work in any PDF files for you? Can you try downloading and opening this document in Acrobat (not through the web browser plug in)?
http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/products/acrobat/pdfs/Adobe-Reader-X-TCO.pdf

Un-installing and re-installing is worth a shot...

Yes, the links in that document work. They also work in the pdf's created from InDesign and Word including the TOC's, they just won't appear in the bookmarks. From Word, manually created bookmarks will show up and that was where the Adobe Rep. said I would need to create all the bookmarks manually including the TOC. Not really an option in some of the 100+ page documents we have.

If you have no other options, I will try to reinstall.

Something to try —
. (this references Word 2007 & Acrobat 9 on a Windows box -- Word 2010 & Acrobat X will be similar)
.
While in Word, select 'Acrobat' from the ribbon.
Open the Preferences dialog and select the Bookmarks tab. Scroll down to the 'TOC' entries. Tick the desired Bookmark 'box' and set the desired 'Level'.
Output PDF to view the effect. Adjust the Preferences configuration as needed.
.
While a Word TOC typically pulls from Heading styles the TOC entries are not actually that 'style'; so, use the appropriate "TOC" entries in the Bookmarks tab of the Preferences dialog.
.

Thank you for the reply but I have tried that several times. I even tried it once or twice with everything selected but still no luck. I also tried copying the entire document (27 pages) and pasting it in a new document since I earlier had deleted the Normal.dot file. I re-did all of my headings to use Word's settingsand it still wouldn't create bookmarks.

I think I'm going to try and reinstall. I only installed Office 2010 on Friday and though I had installed Acrobat X some time before that, I can't be certain if it worked so I will do Office first and see if that's the problem, if not, reinstall Acrobat as well.

I have now reinstalled Office 2010 and it does seem to be work now.

Thank you all for your help.

Wonderful News!

I had the same issue, along with someone else who has Word 2010 and Acrobat 10 - bookmarks are not being created in the PDF even though Word is set up to do it with styles.

I have installed the latest Acrobat update (10.1.1).

To resolve it:

1. Make sure that the Adobe PDF option (in Word 2010 ribbon) > Preferences, Bookmark check boxes include both Word Headings AND Word Styles - then made sure that my 2 heading styles were selected.2. In the File > Save PDF As dialog box, select the Options tab and make sure that Word Styles is selected there as well.:-) joan

I also had the same problem with Acrobat x and word 2010 pro 64bit.

I managed to create bookmarks and I also got the hyperlinks of my word TOC converted to links in my PDF, but the links in my pdf go to the top of the page where the heading is instead of to the heading, anyone a solution for this problem?

@swvermeulen,

It seems the only reliable fix is to re-install Office, then Acrobat (if the above fixes don't work for you). Another user suggested that a Microsoft update may be interfering with the bookmark creation process, but I haven't confirmed.