welpdx / bkmk4pdftk

A better way to generate a pdftk bookmark text file, for pdf bookmarks creation

bkmk4pdftk

While pdftk is great at adding bookmarks to a pdf, many (including me) find it's format tedious. This project tries to generate a pdftk format bookmark file from a table in google sheets using GAS (Google Sheet Scripts). Simply recreate the table of contents in one tab, run a script, and bam, you can download the pdftk file to add onto your pdf.

Basically the polar opposite of this. With Google Sheets (cause idk vba and I suck as a coder).

What does it do?

I find it easier to copy the Table of Contents from a pdf by Alt + Click -> Drag to select the text and copying it on a table. Then, use the macro to gather the data and export it to a pdftk bookmark formatted text file. See gif below for what this macro does.

How to Use It?

1. Click on this link to view and duplicate the spreadsheet with the macro scripts.

Or follow these instructions to create your own spreadsheet with the GAS.

Create a **new** Google spreadsheet, click Tools > Script editor... then copy and paste the contents of the interday.gs file (see above) into the script editor and save. Return to the spreadsheet and refresh the page (Note: actually click the refresh button or select it from the menu; the keyboard shortcut is overridden on Google Sheets, at least in Google Chrome). A couple seconds after the page reloads you should see a "Menu" menu at the top.

2. Input your data to the table manually. Just copy and paste the page number, title into the table. Adjust the level as you see fit.
3. Click on Menu and then dataToText. This function will gather the data in each row and appends the data into pdftk format text.
4. Goto the bookmark_input tab and check things look good. If not, you can always change the values in the table and run the dataToText again.
5. Click on Menu and then ExportToTextFile. This function will convert the blocks of text on bookmark_output into a text file for download or copy pasting.
6. See below on how to use this text file for pdftk or pdfWriteBookmarks to add bookmarks onto your pdf.

How do I add bookmarks to my pdf from start to finish?

I'm sure those those who are reading this already know what pdftk is. But in cause you don't, pdftk is a tool kit that helps you add bookmarks to your pdf. If you have adobe acrobat, I really question why you are here. But if you are poor like me, then welcome to the club!

1. Create you own spreadsheet by Clicking this link and duplicating it so you can enter your own data.
2. Once you are done, click to start the macros and download the text file.
3. Get pdftk here.
4. Put your pdf file and your text file in the same folder. Start a command prompt in that folder path and enter the following code: pdftk [input_file.pdf] update_info [bookmarks.txt] output [output_file.pdf] For more info, read this.
5. A good alternative to using pdftk is pdfWriteBookmarks. Usage: java -jar pdfWriteBookmarks.jar [input_file.pdf] [bookmarks.txt] [output.pdf]
6. Done!

Todo

• Add page offset function the google sheet in case pasted page number is not the actual page number in the pdf.
• Make the same sheet w/ macros in Excel using VBA