How to set "List Layers for Visible Pages" as the default?

[mattho99]

Presently, the default is: “List Layers for All Pages”.

I would like to open my documents with "List Layers for Visible Pages".

How can this be changed?

[patriciamhusky]

I have tried to set the default state, but I have not been able to accomplish what I described.  Do you know a way?

[try67]

You want to change which layers are shown in the list when the file is opened? If so, that's not possible, as far as I know.

[patriciamhusky]

Users need to be able to rely on a clean set of layers used for each page, not the confusing list of all layers in the document.  We have many multi-paged PDFs that we planned to use to view and filter layers, and the accumulation of layers from all pages will result in a very long, redundant, and puzzling list in some cases.

The feature is already there to list layers for visible pages.  I know how to toggle it, but other users will not.  Why can't it be saved?   Based on my initial search on this topic, other users need this function, too.

Thank you

[try67]

You can make a feature request here: Feature Request/Bug Report Form

[patriciamhusky]

I see that Acrobat is no longer supported, and I am not in a position to download DC to see if it fixes the problem.  Can you test that?

Thanks

[try67]

Acrobat DC is supported; Previous versions are not and indeed won't be fixed/changed.

I can't test it right now, but I doubt it will be any different.

[stro1]

Hi there. I'm using Acrobat X Pro and recognize that there's not a way to make "list layers for visible pages" the default and that it won't be added in the future since this version is so old. However, i'm curious if you could post a small snippet of javascript that i could embed in my pdf to automatically make the change when the user first opens the pdf as well as to expand all the layer groups for the various pages so that they user doesn't have to do this manually.

[Guest]

I am having this problem as well.  Interestingly, when exporting a PDF from ArcGIS Pro "List Layers for Visible Pages" is set as the default so it seems that this is possible. I just can't figure out how to do it outside of ArcGIS though.

Opening the PDF that was exported from ArcGIS Pro in Notepad I found the following line which seems to be what controls this setting:
<</Metadata 363 0 R/OCProperties<</D<</ListMode/VisiblePages/Name(Layers Tree)/Order.......

In a PDF that lists all layers this line is:
<</Metadata 2 0 R/OCProperties<</D<</OFF[]/Order.......

I don't know anything about editing PDFs though so I am not sure how to properly add this into other PDFs.