How to prevent PDF from displaying imported filenames instead of page numbers

[DaveRado]

I'm using Acrobat Pro XI. Whenever I create a multipage PDF from a series of image files (by dragiing the image files into Acrobat), the resulting PDF displays the imported filenames in the page navigation toolbar, instead of displaying the pagenumbers.

How can I make it display the page numbers instead? I don't want everyone I send the PDF to to have to see the filename of all the TIFs I imported in the page navigation toolbar, which won't mean anything to them - I just want them to see the pagenumbers. To show you what I mean, in the following screen capture:

 

I want it to say "1" where it currently says: "Completed Generic referral form.tif".

Dave

[Bernd Alheit]

You can change the page labels in the pages navigation panel.

[DaveRado]

Hi Bernd_Alheit 

1) If I open the page navigation pane and right-click on each page thumbnail, and select "number pages", and delete the contents of the prefix field, which is where the page label seems to be stored, then instead of displaying the page numbers on the toolbar as follows, which is how they are displayed in normal PDF files:

... it instead displays them as follows, which looks awful:

2) If I then save and reopen the resulting file, it displays the page numbers as follows, which is a bit better, but is still not what I want - which is for the page numbers to displayed the way they are in a normal PDF:

3) If I then go back to the navigation pane, right-click on the first thumbnail, select Page Numbering and change the "Style" to "1, 2, 3", then it displays the page numbers as follows, which is a bit better still, but is still not what I want:

What I want is for the page numbers to displayed the way they are in a normal PDF, i.e. like this:

The only workaround I've found to this so far is to print the resulting file using the Adobe PDF driver - but that loses the OCR'd text, which is a pain - and it's a very inelagant workaround in any case. Is there no other way to get the page numbers in a PDF file that has been created from multiple scanned images to display as they do in an ordinary PDF, other than by printing the PDF to a new PDF using the Adobe PDF driver?

Dave

[Bernd Alheit]

What happens when you combine the images in Acrobat?

[DaveRado]

That's where I did combine them. They aren't images in the normal sense anyway, they are scanned pages, which I did combine in Acrobat.

[Bernd Alheit]

From where does you get the label "Completed Generic referral form.tif" ?

[DaveRado]

I explained that in my original post in this thread.

[Bernd Alheit]

I doesn't understand your workflow. What does you use? Image files or scanned pages?

[DaveRado]

Drag and drop several scanned image files at once film Windows Explorer into Acrobat, and when asked if you want to optimise them and create a single pdf from them, say yes.

[Bernd Alheit]

Possible that this creates the page label.

[DaveRado]

Obviously, but I don't want them. I'm trying to find out how to create a multipage PDF from multiple scanned image files, optimised, without getting this problem - or how to get rid of the problem afterwards, other than by using the workaround I posted of printing the resulting PDF to a new PDF.

[Bernd Alheit]

Combine the files in Adobe Acrobat:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat/combine-and-merge-files-into-one-pdf/td-p/10883046

[DaveRado]

Hi Bernd_Alheit

That works, although the instructions in the document you linked to are for an older version of Acrobat - in Acrobat XI Pro there is no Tools menu, and instead you have to select File + Create (or alternatively, select Create on the toolbar), and then select Combine Files into a Single PDF. 

Many thanks.

It doesn't make any sense to me, though, that using that method should give different results from dragging the same group of files into Acrobat from Windows Explorer, in terms of how the page numbers are displayed in the PDF that is created. Do you know whether there is a sensible reason for this difference? If there isn't, then it must surely be a bug. I very much doubt whether any users would be happy with the way page numbers are displayed in the PDF that gets created when you drag multiple files into Acrobat from Windows Explorer - which is a shame, because I think this method is quicker and more intuitive than the other method, although the other method produces a much better end result.

If it is a bug, how does one report it?

Dave

[anub]

I had the same problem, fortunately found a solution

https://youtu.be/WEVbZJ8BTN8

 In the page labels under the page thumbnails option in the navigation bar on the left, keep the prefix field empty and that will prevent the file name from appearing as a page number