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Bookmarks are jumbled after exporting document as pdf

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    • #63232
      Elle Y
      Member

      Hi, am new in this forum : )

      i created the bookmarks manually in indesign; creating them out of a selected page. I would re-order them or edit the names as you would. Every clicks brings me to the correct page in indesign itself.

      I have 2 levels for the bookmarks – section headers and nested bookmarks under the headers.

      However, touble starts after exporting the document as pdf. The bookmarks would bring you to a different page other than intended; some pages are “linked” twice, to 2 different bookmarks; they don't follow the pagination order.

      What gives? Some are correct but I have a 200-page document.

      Please help!

      I don't want to “re-create” and tally them one by one to make sure they match!

      Much appreciated,

      Ling

    • #63233
      David Blatner
      Keymaster

      Very strange. Please try exporting the PDF with different presets or PDF settings, such as PDF/X3 or as PDF (Interactive) to see if that changes anything.

      Is this all one InDesign document? Or is it in a book panel?

    • #63250
      Elle Y
      Member

      Hi David! Thanks for replying so promptly! : )

      Sadly, no. It didn't…

      Yes, it'a all in one file. The strange thing is, if I export a group of pages, the section divider that's linked wronlgy when all pages are exported together, can be linked correctly. Example:

      Page 10 (indesign) is linked to page 70 instead in the full pdf.
      If I export (for eg) pages 5 — 25, page 10 then can be linked correctly.

      This phenomenen is truly perplexing cos if I were to export (for eg) pages 1 — 45, page 10 may then be linked to another different page! i.e. the “errors” are organic.

      Think I've tried deleting an “errant” bookmark and creating a new one, but it may or may not help too…

      Could it be that my document is too large and that I may have too many bookmarks? (but how can that be so?)

      I have a total o 84 bookmarks, of which, 9 are “folders”.

      Help?!

      Thanks! : )

    • #63251
      David Blatner
      Keymaster

      Your file is not too big, and you don't have too many bookmarks. This should work.

      Perhaps try exporting the file as IDML, then opening that IDML back in InDesign. That should get rid of any weird corruption issues…? Clealry something is going wrong.

    • #63263
      Elle Y
      Member

      Hi David!

      Tried your suggestion.. didn't work either..
      Perhaps I should explain how I used cross references. May throw some light on the weird stuff. Perhaps, the cross references and the manual creation of bookmarks confuses indesign??

      Here goes:

      The entries on my contents page are linked to the page headers on the pages; contents page entries = source, page headers on pages = destination. I selected the page numbers to be shown.

      My page header bears the structre of (eg):

      2.3 SECTION HEADER

      Descriptor

      Sometimes I had to customise the entry being reflected back to the contents page, for example, I want to show SECTION HEADER but I don't want the number '2.3' to show. To get around that (I don't know of any other better way), I created another text frame that sits outside the page in question, but touching the page so that my page numbers can then be reflected on my contents page. (Coz if I don't customise, everytime I edit the title, I had to remember to delete the preceeding number on the contents page, not so productive!)

      I gave up troubleshooting the errant bookmarks. Re-creating, blah blah. So I deleted all standing bookmakrs and set to generate them out of TOC method. Tedious, as I had to manually delete what I want shown as bookmarks BEFORE I generate the bookmarks (generating by means of selecting stylesheets is not exactly efficient, EVERYTHING shows, but anyways.. ).

      There. Troubles over. I kept the generated TOC at the last page where I can delete the page off the pdf. Thereby, I edit the bookmarks manually again if I make changes to the page order or create new pages (I don't know how else to edit them). But I always checked my pdf and they tally, even though I'd edited them manually (*celebrates*). So, the TOC at the last page had become a dud, coz if I deleted it, the auto-generated bookmarks would be deleted simultaneously (to my horror, I discovered). Nevermind, no biggie.

      Then. Trouble resumed.

      I discovered there were many pages that seemed “corrupted”. Meaning, the drawn guides won't shown and even if I pull in new ones, they don't show either! They were nowhere to be found. Margin guides are fine. The affected pages have a Masterpage applied to them. I reapplied 'None' to them, apply the relevant Masterpage back. Didn't work. Created new blank masterpage to apply and re-apply other Masterpages with guides. Nope. Everything on the Masterpages showed EXCEPT the guides. Perplexed. I can't get around it.

      So, I had to re-create those affected pages and recreate new bookmarks! I need those guides to show : (

      So I did. Created new pages, cut and paste from errant pages onto new pages (the cross references remained intact, thank goodness), delete the errant pages (and the “generated” bookmark got deleted automatically as well!) and create new bookmarks manually.

      Done. Happy. Generate a pdf from all these madness.

      And. guess what??? Those bookmarks which I re-created to “salvage” those pages with “corrupted guides” pages don't tally again! Wrong tally, multiple references to the wrong pages..etc. Same story …

      OMG. I am really at my wits end!!

      Should I delete ALL bookmarks again and mnually re-create them?

      Will they behave? Oh, I am terrified moving forward.

      Sorry to be writing a thesis… I am so frustrated. :(

    • #63264
      Elle Y
      Member

      Oh, forgot to mention.

      In all this mess, the hyperlink fro the contents page works FINE! *perplexed*

      They link correctly but the error still occurs when you try to access the same page by means of the “errant” bookmarks; they link elsewhere.

    • #63290
      David Blatner
      Keymaster

      Are you talking about “bookmarks” which show up only in Acrobat, in the Bookmarks panel?

      Or are you talking about building a “Table of Contents” with links to sections in your book? A table of contents actually shows up on your document page.

      Does this help: https://creativepro.com/fix…..behave.php

      and

      https://creativepro.com/the…..ntents.php

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