3 min readPublished 24 August 2026Last reviewed 24 August 2026

How to Add Bookmarks to a PDF

Written and fact-checked by The EditPDF AI Team

PDF bookmarks form a clickable outline in the side panel of most PDF viewers — separate from the page content, and a big help in long documents.

What PDF bookmarks are (and are not)

·A bookmark is a named link to a specific page or scroll position, shown in the viewer's outline panel
·Bookmarks do not change the visible page content — they are metadata layered on top of the document
·Not the same as an in-page table of contents, which is regular page content with clickable links you add yourself

1Open the PDF Bookmarks Manager (editpdfai.com/pdf-bookmarks-manager) in your browser.
2Upload the PDF you want to add bookmarks to.
3Navigate to the page you want to bookmark and add a new entry with a clear label.
4Repeat for each section, chapter, or page worth jumping to directly.
5Save and download the PDF — the bookmarks appear in the outline panel of most PDF viewers.

Naming matters

Use short, specific labels ("3. Methodology" rather than "Section") so the outline panel stays scannable in a long document.

·Bookmark chapter or section starts, not every page — an outline with too many entries defeats the purpose
·If the PDF already has a printed table of contents, mirror its structure in the bookmarks for consistency
·Test the bookmarks in more than one PDF viewer if the document will be widely shared, since outline panel support varies slightly

Core PDF tool

The core workflow is available without an account. Browser and tool-specific limits apply.