PDF Bookmarks
Add, edit, or auto-generate a clickable bookmark outline in any PDF.
About PDF Bookmarks
A Table of Contents for Any PDF
Plenty of PDFs arrive without an outline — scanned reports, exported slides, merged documentation, ebooks that were never tagged. Without bookmarks, the only way to navigate a 200-page document is scrolling and guessing. This tool lets you build a proper clickable outline: a sidebar tree of named entries that jump straight to a page.
If your PDF already has bookmarks, they're loaded into the editor the moment the file opens, so you can rename, retarget, reorder and re-nest them instead of starting from scratch. If it doesn't, you can add entries one by one, paste a whole list at once, or let the tool find the headings for you.
Three Ways to Build an Outline
Write it yourself, import it, or generate it — then refine everything in the same tree editor.
Manual Tree Editor
Add bookmarks one at a time, then drag rows to reorder them or nest them under a parent — up to three levels deep.
Heading Detection
Scan the document for lines that look like headings — larger or bolder than body text — and turn them into a nested outline automatically.
List Import
Paste JSON like [{"title":"Intro","page":1}] or one "Title | page" per line, indented two spaces per level, and import it in one step.
Live Page Preview
Selecting a bookmark renders the page it points at, so you can verify a retargeted entry without leaving the editor.
Tune Detection Until It Matches Your Document
Heading detection isn't one-size-fits-all. A sensitivity slider controls how much bigger than body text a line must be to count as a heading — lower it for subtle documents, raise it when captions keep getting picked up. You can also include bold lines, cap the outline depth, and add regular-expression patterns per level, like ^Chapter\s+\d+ for level one or ^\d+\.\d+ for level two.
Detection results land in the same editable tree as everything else, so the workflow is: generate, then fix the handful of entries that need a different title or page. Existing bookmarks, imported lists and detected headings can be mixed freely.
How It Compares
Most ways of getting bookmarks into a PDF involve desktop software or starting the document over.
| Feature | OxygenPDF | Desktop PDF editors | Re-exporting from source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reads and edits existing bookmarks | |||
| Auto-detects headings | Rarely | ||
| Import a bookmark list | |||
| Drag-and-drop nesting | Varies | ||
| Works on PDFs you didn't create | |||
| Free, no install, no upload | Varies |
Your Document Never Leaves Your Device
The PDFs that most need bookmarks — contracts, manuals, theses, internal reports — are often exactly the ones you shouldn't upload to a random website. Most online PDF tools send your file to a server for processing.
OxygenPDF reads, edits and rewrites the PDF entirely in your browser. Nothing is transmitted, and closing the tab wipes the data. Even password-protected files are unlocked locally — the password is used to decrypt the document in memory and goes nowhere.
PDF Bookmarks: Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about this tool and how it works.
Free Forever
Pro
$29 one-timeRelated tools
Continue working with your PDFs
Edit PDF
Add text, images, drawings, shapes, and highlights to your PDF.
Annotate PDF
Highlight, underline, add sticky notes, stamps, and comments without changing the document.
Insert Watermark
Add text, image, or pattern watermarks to your PDFs.
Remove Watermark
Detect and remove watermarks from PDF documents.
Add Page Numbers
Add customizable page numbers to your PDF.
Add Header & Footer
Add text headers and footers to your PDF pages.