How to Add a SEARCH Bookmark to a PDF Document

By Ugur Akinci

Usually a PDF document’s bookmarks are generated automatically by the “Distiller engine” based on the paragraph tags you define in the PDF configuration settings. These are usually based on standard tags like “Heading 1”, “Heading 2”, “Chapter Title” etc.

But what if you also wanted to add a SEARCH button to your bookmarks so that the end users can search for items they are interested in and directly go to that page of the document?

I can hear you say “but PDF documents already have a built-in search function (Ctrl +F)?” Correct. But it’s a limited and primitive form of search that cannot take into consideration case-sensitivity, exact form of the search string, etc. Trust me, you can offer a search function much better than that by following these steps:

(1) With your PDF document open in Adobe Acrobat Professional, click the New Bookmark button to add a new untitled bookmark.

(2) Change the name to Search and then right-click and select Properties from the pop-up menu:

(3) In the Book Properties dialog box, select a Style for your new bookmark:

(4) Then select a Color:

(5) Click and select the Actions tab.

IMPORTANT: Delete the page reference in the Actions text box by clicking the Delete button. Otherwise your new bookmark will always point at the page specified in the Actions text box. You don’t want that for a SEARCH button.

(6) Click the Add button and select an appropriate action from the list. In our case, we will select the “Edit > Search” action: