How to bookmark a page in a PDF document in Adobe Reader

Adobe rules the roost when it comes to Portable Document Format (PDF). Like it or hate it.

Even when Adobe Reader swelled in importance and size, free PDF alternatives 4 Very Light Alternatives to Adobe Reader 4 Very Light Alternatives to Adobe Reader Still using Adobe Reader for PDF documents? It's time to move on to an alternative PDF reader that's lightweight, starts up quickly, while keeping your documents saved. Read More They brought new features and some you could only find in the commercial Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, the paid older brother of the one that is still free. Adobe Acrobat Reader DC .

There are still good reasons to use it. A better typography engine, support for 3D content, and the bridge to the Adobe Document Cloud is at the top of the list. You have 2 GB of free storage there in the cloud. And then there are plenty of good reasons to avoid Acrobat Reader. This is why you don't need Adobe Reader. That's why you don't need Adobe Reader. Adobe Reader is bloated, slow, and a liability. In short, it is unnecessary. Do you need a PDF reader at all? Here's how to open PDF files without Adobe Reader. Read more.

If you have gone either way then you will have to live with the pros and cons of both. But, as a layman, I miss one of the most basic features you should have in an app that calls a "Reader":

You cannot bookmark a page in a PDF document that you open with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Imagine you are reading A game of thrones (the first book of the A Song of Ice and Fire Serie). You just left it at page number 312. Leaving aside the fact that you should never read it in the PDF, how are you supposed to go back to the same page when you start reading again?

The problem is still unresolved.. Adobe has a useful bookmarking tool in the left sidebar. But you can't create your own from there. So let's create some workarounds and solve the bookmark issue.

The easy way to remember a page in Adobe Reader

Adobe Reader does not allow you to create and place new bookmarks, but there is a small setting you can apply that will help the software remember the last page the PDF reader opened. It is “technically” not a bookmark, but it is a simple checkmark that you should always enable.

Follow the steps below to enable the native feature.

1. Go Edit> Preferences (Windows) or Acrobat / Adobe Acrobat Reader> Preferences (Mac OS). You can also use the keyboard shortcut. Control + K .
2. Click Documents under the categories listed on the left.
3. As shown in the screenshot below, enable the feature that says - Restore Last View Settings When Reopening Documents . Click OK and exit.

Now, open any number of PDF documents; Adobe Reader remembers the page you left it on. This may not be a bookmarking solution, it may not give you the option to bookmark multiple points in a book, but it is a simple and elegant answer to our basic requirement when opening an ebook in a PDF reader. PDF for Windows Top 6 PDF Readers for Windows Adobe Reader isn't always the best choice for viewing PDF files. Here are the best PDF readers for Windows 10 to consider. Read more.

Use markup tools

The markup tools provide two different solutions for creating a marker.

Highlight text to mimic a bookmark

It may not be someone who highlights and annotates PDF documents. 5 free tools to edit PDF files. 5 free tools to edit PDF files. PDF files are universally useful. However, they fall short when it comes to editing. We are here to show you the best free tools to edit your PDF files. Read more . Use this feature to mark the last place you read if you use the Highlight feature in Acrobat Reader sparingly.

1. The Highlight tool is represented by a pen symbol on the Adobe Reader toolbar. Click on it to activate the marker.
2. Highlight the part of the text you want to “bookmark” and come back to later. Save the PDF by closing the Reader.
3. Scrolling through the pages to get to the marked highlight can be a chore. Use the Thumbnails view in the left sidebar instead.

Remember, you can always remove the highlight as you go through the document. Right-click on the highlighted text (or image) and select Delete from the context menu that appears.

Mark with a sticky note and comment

Use a similar approach with the sticky notes tool on the toolbar. It is the most common way to add a comment to a PDF file. You can see it right next to the highlight pencil. The Sticky Note also gives you the convenience of a timestamp and a text area where you can add your own comments, in the best tradition of adding book notes to the margins.

Now you can easily jump to the specific comment you added to the note. Open the PDF document in Acrobat Reader.

1. Go View> Tools> Comment> Open .
2. the List of comments Appears in the right pane of the document window. It shows all the comments in a PDF and also shows a toolbar with common options like sorting, filtering and other options for working with comments. Click on the comment and jump to the specific location in the document.

Did you notice the many annotation and drawing markup tools on the commenting toolbar? These options are incredibly powerful ways to make your reading more immersive and engaging. A full breakdown of each tool is beyond the scope of this article, but this Adobe Help page will walk you through them all.

You can use the text and drawing tools on the toolbar to mark segments or sentences that are important. The Best Way to Remember Everything You Read How to Remember What You Read With Simple Tools How to Remember What You Read With Simple Tools Reading More won't do you any good if you can't keep everything you read. Use these tips when it's hard to remember what you've read. Reading More is connecting information to details that exist outside of the PDF document.

But, we still haven't come up with a precise way to markup a PDF document in Acrobat Reader. It's time to look at a hack supplied by a third party.

A JavaScript trick that works with Adobe Acrobat

Call this an Adobe plugin or hack, but it's the only solution I could find to deliberately introduce a bookmarking feature into Adobe Reader. The small 5 KB JavaScript file is packaged in a downloadable PDF Hacks ZIP file .

1. Download and unzip the small file. Copy the file (“bookmark_page”) to the JavaScript directory of your Acrobat Reader. On my Windows 10 machine it is located at - C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat Reader DC\Reader\Javascripts .
2. Launch a PDF file with Adobe Acrobat Reader and open the View menu. Four new items are clearly visible in the menu:
   > Bookmark This page.
   > Go to bookmark.
   > Delete a bookmark.
   > Clear bookmarks.
3. The numbers (5,6) next to the top two options refer to keyboard shortcut keys.
4. The functions are pretty self-explanatory. From the page you want to bookmark, click Bookmark this page . The following box opens and you can assign a name to the bookmark.
5. Clicking Go to Bookmark opens a floating box and a click on each one takes you to each successive marker you've set. You can mark as many page numbers as you like.
6. The other two options in the menu are also clear. The Remove a bookmark command allows you to delete a single bookmark and Clear bookmarks delete all bookmarks at once.

Note: For some PDF files, the hack works without problems. In others, you may get an internal error notification. To resolve it, go to Edit> Preferences . Scroll through the categories and select JavaScript . Place a check against Enable Acrobat JavaScript . Click OK and exit.

Is the absence of a marker feature a deal breaker?

We still need our PDF files and a powerful reader. What is a PDF file and why do we still trust them? What is a PDF file and why do we still trust them? PDF files have been around for over two decades. Let's find out how they came about, how they work, and why they're so popular years later. Read more . Adobe Acrobat Reader is just that:a simple PDF file reader. It is meant to be a stepping stone to the full Adobe Acrobat Pro DC which allows bookmarking.

Over time, the free version has introduced better security features and marking tools. But, encoding in a marker structure is a different ballgame. So tell us about your appointment with PDF bookmarks.

Do you know of any other ways to bookmark eBooks in Adobe Reader? What is your favorite PDF reader? Does it allow bookmarks?