create table of contents from bookmarks in Adobe Acrobat 2017

[eileens13842634]

I have combined a large document in Adobe Acrobat 2017 and want to create a table of contents from the bookmarks. How do I do this?

[try67]

It can be done using a script, but it's quite a complex task. You would need to iterate over the entire bookmarks tree (recursively), find out to which page each bookmarks points to and then generate new pages with the bookmarks' names and page numbers.

If you're interested, I've developed a (paid-for) tool that does just that, with a single click. You can find it here: Custom-made Adobe Scripts: Acrobat -- Create Table Of Contents (TOC) in a PDF file from Bookmarks

[Barbara26212846fw5q]

I downloaded the demo and installed per the instructions and Acrobat would no longer run. I had to uninstall and reinstall.

[eileens13842634]

Are you saying you have developed an add on script that I have to pay for to be able to do this? Adobe does not have the capability in the program itself? If so, how much?

[try67 · Accepted solution]

Correct, there's no built-in feature in Acrobat that does that. Typically, this is the kind of thing you would do before converting a file to PDF.

[Lindsay64]

@MVP except that some files are assembled from pages from other pdfs....

It's possible to add bookmarks... but not a title page/contents from within Acrobat....

Seems to be a worthwhile feature to me...

[try67]

Sorry, I don't quite follow what you mean...

[Lindsay64]

Well, not all documents are created in, for example MS Word, where it is easy to add a contents page.

For example, I was getting together some music manuscript from a selection of sheet music... All were already pdfs.

These can't be exported to Word for a contents table top be added, then saved as a PDF.

It took a very labour intensive hour or so to type it up, check it then add the table manually to the pdf.  (It was a large document which needed to be be easy to navigate in paper form as well as digital).

[try67]

You don't need to export it to Word or anything like that if you use my script. All you need is to have a bookmarks structure and the tool will automatically generate the TOC page(s), including the links, from it.