Duplicate Destinations

[a1dukefan]

Why does Adobe Acrobat create duplicate destinations. One of them works for the bookmarks and one works for the Table of Contents links. 

[Tariq Ahmad Dar]

Hi @a1dukefan,

Thanks for sharing this. We understand how frustrating it can be to open a PDF and find bookmarks behaving in unexpected ways, especially when you weren’t involved in creating them.

What’s likely happening:

In your case, the bookmarks may have been automatically generated when the PDF was created—for example, from Word, InDesign, or another authoring tool, and may all point to the same location (often the first page or a specific heading) because of how the export handled tags or headings.

This can happen if:

• The source document had multiple headings styled the same way but pointing to the same section.

• The export settings created named destinations for each heading, but those destinations were all mapped to the same page.

• Bookmarks were copied or generated by batch tools or scripts.

 

What you can do:

1. Open the Bookmarks panel in Acrobat.
2. Click through the bookmarks. If they all lead to the same page, that’s confirmation that they point to duplicate destinations (technically, even if no warning appears).
3. If you don’t need them, you can:

• Delete bookmarks manually: Right-click > Delete

• Or use Tools > Action Wizard to remove bookmarks in bulk.

If you’d like to fix them:

• You’ll likely need to recreate the bookmarks manually or regenerate the PDF from the source with correct heading structure and export settings.

• Ensure the file is converted to PDF format using Acrobat appropriate bookmark settings are checked for PDF conversion. https://adobe.ly/4dXx3zk

Let us know how it works. 

~Tariq