markpdf

markpdf is a command-line tool to add bookmarks to PDFs. Thanks to the human friendly format used to specify bookmarks, invoking markpdf can often be more convenient than equivalent workflows using applications such as Adobe Acrobat.

Below is an example of the bookmark format; a complete explanation is available later in this document.

Cover, 1
Contents, 2
Topic 1. Stoichiometric Relationships, 3
    1.1: Particulate nature of matter, 3
    1.2: Molar volume of a gas and calculations, 7
# ...

Usage

Clone this repository and run go build. Then simply run the resulting binary, passing in three files: your bookmarks, input PDF, and output.

usage: markpdf bookmarks.txt input.pdf output.pdf [-r]
  -r    replace existing bookmarks (default true)

Bookmark Format

markpdf accepts a sequence of bookmarks separated by newlines. Lines that only contain whitespace or begin with a # will be ignored. A single bookmark has the following format:

<title>, <page_number>

For example, Introduction, 1 specifies a bookmark titled Introduction pointing to page 1.

Bookmarks may be arbitrarily nested using indentation to create a hierarchy. For example:

Data structures, 1
    Stacks and queues, 1
        Deques, 3
    Circular lists, 5

corresponds to a bookmark hierarchy with one top-level bookmark, "Data structures", containing two immediate children, "Stacks and queues" and "Circular lists". In addition, "Stacks and queues" has a child called "Deques".

Custom starting page numbers

When adding bookmarks according to a table of contents, it is often convenient to set a custom starting page, such that 1 refers not to page 1 of the PDF but rather to, say, page 7, the first page of content. To do this, use the set command. For example:

Cover, 1
Table of Contents, 4

set 7
Mechanics, 1

The above creates three bookmarks: one to page 1 of the PDF titled "Cover", one to page 4 of the PDF titled "Table of Contents", and another to page 7 of the PDF titled "Mechanics".

Contributing

Contributions in the form of issue reports or pull requests are welcomed. Those hacking on the markpdf codebase may find it informative to read through CONTRIBUTING.md, which explains how the project is structured.

Author

markpdf is authored and maintained by Joe L. and is made available under the terms of the MIT license.