Create Bookmarks

Scrolling through a 90-page PDF to find one section gets old fast. Bookmarks fix that: a clickable outline in the reader's sidebar that jumps straight to any chapter or heading. Well-made PDFs ship with them; most exported and scanned ones do not. This tool lets you add bookmarks to any PDF and give it a proper navigable table of contents.

The format could hardly be simpler. You type one line per bookmark: the page number, a comma, then the title — "1, Cover" on the first line, "3, Chapter 1" on the next, "12, Appendix A" further down. The tool builds the outline from your list and writes it into the PDF. Readers then see the structure in their sidebar and can jump anywhere with one click.

As with every PDFora tool, the file is processed locally in your browser and never uploaded, so internal manuals and client reports stay private. It is free, needs no account, adds no watermark, and works on documents of any length.

How to add bookmarks to a PDF online

1. Open your PDF in the tool — it loads in your browser without being sent to any server.
2. Skim the document and note the page number where each section begins.
3. In the bookmark box, type one entry per line as "page, Title" — for example "1, Cover" then "3, Chapter 1".
4. Add a line for every section you want in the outline: chapters, appendices, key exhibits.
5. Click to apply, and the tool writes the clickable outline into the PDF.
6. Download the file and open the bookmarks panel in your reader to test each jump.

When to use this tool

• Add a chapter outline to a self-published ebook so readers can navigate it like a properly produced book.
• Give a 120-page employee handbook a sidebar table of contents — Policies, Leave, Benefits, Code of Conduct — so staff stop asking where things are.
• Bookmark each exhibit in a merged court filing so the judge's clerk can jump directly to Exhibit C.
• Structure lecture notes by week before sharing them with a class, letting students skip straight to the topic they missed.
• Add section bookmarks to a scanned equipment manual whose original navigation was lost in scanning.
• Outline a long financial report by quarter and statement type before circulating it to the board.

Tips for the best results

• Use the page numbers of the PDF file itself, not the numbers printed on the pages — a preface often pushes them out of sync.
• Keep titles short and scannable; "Chapter 4: Pricing" beats a full sentence in a narrow sidebar.
• List entries in page order so the outline reads top to bottom like a real table of contents.
• Bookmark the cover and any contents page too — readers expect a way back to the start.
• For very long documents, bookmark every major heading, not just chapters; a 200-page file deserves 20 entries, not 5.