PDF bookmarks and table of contents: how they work

1 min read·25 July 2026

Long PDFs with bookmarks are much easier to navigate. Here you learn how to view and use bookmarks in a PDF — and how to use PDFrust's metadata tool to adjust the title and other document properties.

View bookmarks in a PDF

In Microsoft Edge: click the bookmark icon in the left sidebar to see the table of contents. In Adobe Acrobat: click the bookmark panel on the left. In Preview on Mac: click the sidebar menu and choose Bookmarks.

Navigate using bookmarks

Click a bookmark to jump directly to that chapter or section. In long reports and e-books bookmarks are essential for fast navigation.

PDF metadata

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Edit PDF metadata

The title, author, and other metadata of a PDF can be viewed and edited with PDFrust's metadata tool. You can change the title so the PDF displays correctly in search results and in Windows Explorer.

Adding bookmarks

Adding bookmarks to an existing PDF requires specialised software (Adobe Acrobat Pro, Foxit PhantomPDF). Simple free tools do not support this because bookmarks are embedded deep in the PDF structure.