How to Create Bookmarks in CommonLook PDF Desktop

Product

CommonLook PDF Desktop Version

Feature

Bookmarks

Document Element

Adding or regenerating bookmarks

Overview

Bookmarks are used to provide another means of navigation through a PDF.  Ideally, the heading levels and the bookmarks should match.

Prerequisites 

It is generally recommended that bookmarks be used for documents that are over nine pages long. However, there is no accessibility requirement that bookmarks are used in a PDF document.

Bookmark Settings

CommonLook's default setting for bookmarks is to generate them up to heading level 4.  If you want to change this (to generate more or fewer bookmarks), you can adjust this in the User Preferences from the Ribbon in the Settings tab.

1. Navigate to the Settings tab in CommonLook PDF.  (Use the tab in the toolbar, the Alt key, or the Active Tools Window. Read this article for more information about navigating your way around CommonLook.) 
2. Choose User Preferences.
   
3. In the User Preferences dialog box, navigate to the dropdown menu for "Generate bookmarks up to heading level:" and make the necessary selection.
   
4. Hit "OK."

Steps to Follow

To generate bookmarks based on heading levels, follow these steps:

1. Remediate the document, being sure that heading level tags are used correctly.
2. Navigate to the Bookmarks panel by selecting the Windows tab and choosing Bookmarks or use the Active Tools Window.  (Refer to this article for more on the Active Tools Window.)
   
3. If there are already bookmarks present,  right-click on “Bookmarks” (or otherwise open the context menu) and choose Delete (or, select "Bookmarks" and use the Delete key on your keyboard.  If there are not bookmarks already present, proceed to the next step.
   
4. Right-click (open the context menu) on "Bookmarks" again (if needed) and choose "Regenerate bookmarks."
   
5. When generated, the list of bookmarks will be closed.  Double click on “Bookmarks” (or use the right-arrow key) to open them and verify the nested bookmarks inside.  In the screenshot below, the bookmark for the Heading 1 (Retail Pharmacies) is open to show the H2 bookmarks – Adams, Bedford, and Berks.  Likewise, the bookmark for Adams is open showing the H3 level bookmarks (Biglerville, East Berlin, Fairfield, etc.).
   

Frequently Asked Questions

Why am I getting a warning message when I run a verification that the Headings and the Bookmarks don't match? How can this be resolved?

If the Headings and the Bookmarks are not the same, you'll get a message telling you that the Headings and the Bookmarks don't match.  

Here are some possible options to address this:

• Navigate to the Bookmarks panel, delete the bookmarks that are there, regenerate them, and then run an Incremental verification to see if that fixed it.
• Navigate to the Settings, adjust the bookmark creation level so that the bookmarks will be created up to your highest heading level used in the document, and run an Incremental verification.
• If you know that the headings and bookmarks should not match, if, for example, your organization only uses bookmarks up to H2 or H3 but your document goes to H5, then use Edit Checkpoint Status, change the Status to "Passed," and (optional, but suggested), enter a comment indicating that it's an organizational decision to only use bookmarks to heading level "X" ("X" being the heading number).