InDesign CS3 and automatic bookmarks

Hi --

A case of one hand not knowing what the other hand is doing? :)

In InDesign, the bookmarks must be added manually. IE:

* Choose Window > Interactive > Bookmarks to open the panel.
* Select the content and click Create New Bookmark in the Bookmarks panel.
* Continue....

When the file is exported as PDF, InDesign opens the Export Adobe PDF dialog after the file is initially named and saved. On the General settings, which show by default regardless of the PDF Preset (joboptions) used, the Bookmarks checkbox in the Include section has to be selected.

Once the file is exported, check it out in Acrobat -- and there are the bookmarks.

No question is an ignorant question.

donna.

Hi Donna,

Yes, it is like one hand not knowing what the other hand is doing. It seems that is not uncommon in many organizations; communications is definitely something we all need to improve.

Thanks for the quick response. Glad to know the steps, though I wish adding bookmarks wasn't a manual process in InDesign.

I was hoping for some type of automatic conversion to bookmarks, similar to what can be done with Word documents when they are structured correctly.

Given the InDesign process of adding bookmarks is similar to adding bookmarks within an already created PDF, I'm wondering what the advantages are of adding bookmarks in the InDesign native file vs. adding bookmarks in the PDF created from the InDesign native file?

The staff in the other department are not familiar with the various usability features of PDF files, like bookmarks, document title, etc. The staff just knows they can quickly create a PDF file from an InDesign file.

Deborah

You can create automatic bookmarks in InDesign if the following is true:

You use paragraph styles to style your text, you use export to pdf instead of print to Adobe PDF.

How to:

With your text formatted with the right paragraph styles, go to layout -> table of content and define which styles should be used as bookmarks. Set the level of the bookmarks appropriately.In the bottom of the TOC menu click in the "pdf bookmarks" chech box.

Place your toc either on a page in the document (if you want it to be visible, or place it in the pasteboard if you only want the bookmark functionality.


Export the pdf and remember to select pdf bookmarks in the export menu.


/Ida

After more searching, I found some other tips for adding bookmarks to PDFs created from InDesign at:
http://blogs.adobe.com/scratchdisk/2005/11/slick_trick_cre_1.php

I have tried using the automatic bookmark method using the table of contents with paragraph styles created in InDesign and exporting a PDF with include bookmarks checked. It works in my CS3 but we upgraded to CS4 and it doesn't work with CS4. Any input or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks - Cathy

Whooops better add the reply here as well:

Make sure that in the Table of content dialog box in InDesign there is a check mark in "create pdf bookmarks" (buttom part of the dialog box). That ought to do the trick :)