InDesign CS3, Acrobat 8, and bookmarks

[Bacris]

I'm hoping someone else has come across this and can help me out...

I'm using Adobe InDesign CS3 for layout, then exporting to PDF using Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional. In my .indd file, I've tagged text as bookmarks as I've done for forever. However, the initially exported PDF is bloated, so I use Acrobat's built-in "Reduce File Size" function. When I do this, any bookmarks made by tagging text, instead of say, tagging a page or a text box, are stripped...

This didn't happen previously - I'm thinking the problem started with CS3 instead of CS2, but I'm not 100%, I've just been living with the problem for a while.

I can obviously bookmark in the PDF, but if I have to make a change to the master doc, then I have to redo all the bookmarks, and for a 150 page book, that's a lot of wasted effort.

Anyone else encountered this and know of a way to fix it?

[Marius Delphus]

Check your Acrobat settings. There's an option there in PDF Optimizer that strips bookmarks and such. (It seems as though Reduce File Size uses the PDF Optimizer's current settings, but I could be wrong.)

In version 9, it's at Advanced > PDF Optimizer > Discard Objects (checkbox item) > Discard bookmarks (checkbox item). I think it's the same in 8, but I can't verify that right now.

If that still doesn't work, because I'm still convinced it's an Acrobat setting, I'd try turning off everything except image downsampling, then run it a few more times, turning on a couple other options each time, to see if you can find the culprit.

As an aside, I feel your pain: manually bookmarking a PDF multiple times is especially dreadful.

[EDIT] For safety's sake, I'd use saved settings in PDF Optimizer instead of the Reduce File Size option. That way you always know what Acrobat's doing. AFAICT, that menu item's actually been removed in version 9. [/EDIT]

[Bacris]

Thanks Marius. I'll give that a shot.

[Bacris]

Oddly enough, if I turn every setting off in PDF Optimizer, it still breaks the bookmark. It no longer deletes it, but it doesn't do anything.

checking the bookmark properties, its action is "Destination name: Untitled.indd:Name" - I'm guessing that object is getting stripped out, but I can't figure out how to get it to keep it intact - or how to change my InDesign export settings to handle it better.

[Marius Delphus]

These are the InDesign CS3 settings that work for me (attached). Some key points: make sure you are not creating a Tagged PDF, not using a PDF/X standard, and not making it compatible with Acrobat 4 (5 or higher should work).

Just for completness's sake, and not because I think you do this differently, I make my bookmarks by creating a Paragraph Style-based Table of Contents (even if I have to put it on [EDIT] a page that won't end up in the final PDF [/EDIT]). Last step before PDF production is going into the Bookmarks palette and tweaking the order and hierarchy so that it lays out correctly in the Acrobat Bookmarks panel.

In Acrobat, make sure "Make compatible with" is set to "Retain existing."

I was hoping this was an easy fix! Hope this helps.

[Bacris]

Thanks!

I had Hyperlinks unchecked in the InDesign export... and that was the trick.

[Marius Delphus]

Oh good! Glad to help.