Want to Sort Bookmarks in Acrobat March Update Numerically & Alpha Adobe Pro 2023 March Update

[zCatLady]

How do I sort bookmarks in Adobe Acrobat Pro, 2023 numerically or alpabetically? I deal with medical records that are not necessarily in date order, and it's rather frustrating to have to move every single bookmark around as I enter it to keep it in order. And then, I may have to still change their names. I CANNOT access the registry [this is a company machine.] There is NO entry in the ADD INS section. I am not a programmer and if you give me instructions for something in Java, please give it to me step-by-step, 1-2-3.

Surely a company as large as Adobe can put in their database a SORT BY parameter option in the database...that Relational Database 101. Not a hard fix if the database has been programmed correctly in the first place.

Does anyone have anything HELPFUL? I am so frustrated now...I've spend over two hours searching. And then I'm dealing with the limitations of Win 11 upgrade...sheesh. Just make things WORK!

[Amal.]

Hi @zCatLady 

Hope you are doing well and thanks for reaching out.

Once you create the bookmark, you can click and drag it in the panel to rearrange the order or nest bookmarks under others to create an outline of your document. Don’t forget to rename your bookmark so that you can track your various tabs.

For more information, please go through the help pages listed below:

https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/hub/learn-to-add-bookmarks-to-a-pdf.html

https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/page-thumbnails-bookmarks-pdfs.html

~Amal

[Jorgen35922002n7vj]

This is clearly a blunder from Adobe. It is extremely cumbersome to do what is proposed any many times you get nested bookmarks which you are not interested in. Why not have a sort possibility

[try67]

There's no built-in command in Acrobat to do that, and the bookmarks are not a database, but a tree of so-called "Outline Items".

It can be done using a script, though, like this (paid-for) tool I've developed: https://www.try67.com/tool/acrobat-sort-bookmarks

It will also allow you to sort the bookmarks based on multiple criteria, including dates, if they all have the same pattern. Note, though, that sorting the bookmarks does NOT sort the pages they point to. That requires a different kind of tool.

[billlanyon]

Hi there,

As it happens I have been helping my own doctor deliver four years of medical PDFs in a single file, documenting her treatment after a car crash. By combining multiple PDFs into a 598 page PDF in my Acrobat Pro, I have just manually dragged the 400 odd bookmarks created into date order based on her mutiple filenaming conventions... because that is the format demanded by the authorities here in France.

The fact that there is seemingly no functionality in Acrobat Pro for reordering a document's numbered pages based on its bookmarks... blew me away. Third parties seem to offer paid scripted PC solutions? You fine guys invented this format, why not keep it rocking for us paid up Adobe subscribers? I suspect zCatLady is right :).

Thanks for any wisdom,

Bill.