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To add bookmarks to a PDF on a Mac, open the file in Preview and press Command + D, or use Nitro PDF Pro for automatic bookmark creation from headings.
PDF documents are often used to record and share information for both personal and professional reasons. The bad news: sometimes, we need to deal with very long PDF documents. Scrolling through a 200-page report to find one section is frustrating. That's why adding bookmarks matters — they let you jump to any section instantly and find the necessary information.
This article details how to add bookmarks to PDF documents using 5 methods.
Here's a summary of the main ways to add bookmarks to PDFs:
| How to bookmark in PDF | Best for | Main highlights |
| Preview (macOS) | Basic bookmarking | Free, built-in |
| Nitro PDF Pro | Professional editing | Auto-create from headings |
| Adobe Acrobat | Industry standard | Full bookmark hierarchy |
| Hookmark | Deep linking (creating links that open a specific spot inside a document) | Link to specific PDF locations |
| Highlighting | Quick reference | Visual markers |
Before I start bookmarking, I sometimes run a long PDF through the PDF Summarizer GPT tool to figure out which sections actually matter. It helps me decide where to place my bookmarks instead of guessing.
Here’s how to add bookmarks to a PDF in Preview, a macOS native tool to work with images and PDF files:
Note that Preview limits you to bookmarking entire pages, not specific sections of text. So the method works well only for simple navigation.
Here’s also how to work with bookmarks:
I rely on Preview's bookmarks for shorter documents — 50 pages or fewer. Beyond that, the whole-page limitation starts to feel restrictive, especially if I need to mark a specific paragraph in a dense report.
If you want to highlight something in your PDF document, do the following:
In case you want to remove the highlight, simply press Command + Z or select the text, then go the same path: Tools > Annotate > Highlight Text.
While Preview works well for basic tasks, for more intuitive highlighting, I'd definitely recommend Nitro PDF Pro, an advanced PDF editing tool. If you want to highlight text, you can do it as easily as if you were using a regular highlighting marker.
To highlight with Nitro PDF Pro, you don’t have to go through menu bar steps, as you can simply do this in the toolbar:
In Preview, I'd always forget the menu path. With Nitro, it's one click, which feels like using a physical highlighter on paper.
The proof that the tool is advanced is that you have all pro features in one place. You can annotate (including adding links and attachments), comment, and sign PDFs.
Here you can check out more of what’s inside Nitro PDF Pro in comparison to Adobe Acrobat.
In addition to highlighting, you can use notes and speech bubbles to comment on text in a PDF. It’s easy to do that in both — macOS Preview and Nitro PDF Pro.
To add comments with Preview:
To add comments with Nitro PDF Pro:
Read also:
Hookmark is a Mac app that creates bidirectional links between files, web pages, and specific locations inside PDFs.
Sometimes, you may need to refer to a specific place in your document from outside of the PDF, such as in your notes, other documents, and emails. With Hookmark, you can do both: link to your PDF document and even to specific locations within PDFs.
Here’s how to link to a specific location in a PDF with Hookmark:
So, for example, if you’re a lawyer, and you find an important contradiction in the other side’s testimony, you can add an item to your to-do list in Hookmark to follow up on it. You can click on the link days or weeks later to get back to where you were. You can even send your coworker or client a link to that exact spot in the document.
So how to add bookmarks in PDF files on a Mac? PDF document can contain a large number of pages, so the document’s owner should always add bookmarks to the PDF to mark the beginning of a new section as best practice.
When reading a PDF document, it’s likely that the reader will want to create bookmarks in the PDF too, to mark some important points in the document. This lets you return to key points with one click.
Here are the other reasons to add bookmarks in a PDF:
After testing all five methods, here's my honest take:
Your PDF workflow deserves better than endless scrolling — bookmark, annotate, and deep-link with the right tools. Nitro PDF Pro and Hookmark are both available on Setapp — 270+ Mac and iOS apps. Cancel anytime. Start My 7-Day Trial.
Yes. In Nitro PDF Pro, open the document and choose Edit > Bookmarks > Auto-Create Bookmarks. The app scans your headings and builds a clickable list for you. If you're exporting from Word, tick "Create bookmarks from headings" in the Save As options before you click Save.
Open your PDF in any compatible app. Navigate to the desired page or select specific text. Use the bookmark function (usually under Tools or Edit menu). Name your bookmark for easy reference. Most apps save bookmarks automatically within the PDF file.
Add "#page=X" to your PDF URL (replace X with the page number). For linking to specific text, use Hookmark to create deep links that work even if the file moves. These links open the exact location in any PDF reader that supports the feature.
Your PDF might be password-protected with restrictions. Open the document properties to check permissions. Some scanned PDFs lack text layers needed for bookmarking. Try using OCR software first. If using Preview, remember it only bookmarks whole pages, not text selections.
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