Jun 18 2009
Bookmarks/TOC Change in InDesign CS4
If you generate a Table of Contents in a file (or book) in InDesign, hyperlinked bookmarks are automatically generated when you export to PDF with Hyperlinks and Bookmarks options checked in the export dialog. Bookmarks make it easy for readers of the PDF to find information quickly: displayed in the Navigation pane in Acrobat or Reader, they serve as a dynamic table of contents that’s always available.
Sometimes I want the bookmarks in the PDF, but without a visible table o’contents in the file. In the past, I’ve generated my TOC in InDesign, but put it in the pasteboard. The text isn’t visible in the PDF, but the bookmarks are created.
Today I discovered that this trick doesn’t work in InDesign CS4! Instead, the TOC text frame has to have at least an edge hanging into a document page for the bookmarks to be created. While this isn’t fatal, it’s weird that the functionality has changed.
I’m glad to see someone else verify this — I mentioned it on the InDesign list shortly after CS4 was released, and was curtly told that I was wrong.
cheers!
I tried to explain this change here:
http://blogs.adobe.com/indesigndocs/2009/03/bookmarks_and_text_anchors.html
Bob,
Thank you for your post; my client can’t have extra pages in the InDesign file (long story), so their solution now is to position the TOC frame so its edge clings to the first page, but the visible text is beyond bleed. I hadn’t noticed the change, because I hadn’t had to do the “hidden TOC, crouching bookmarks” trick since CS4 came out, so it caught me by surprise.
Thanks for that info! I was struggling with that problem and this post has cleared it up!