PDF Bookmarks From Xara Designer

[kevinburke]

Hi All,

Is there a practical method to create bookmarks directly by exporting a Xara project to .PDF format? I don't think there is, but perhaps I can somehow tag each page and have a PDF program read the tags to create a hierarchy of bookmarks. I need the nested bookmarks rather than a flat list of them, to match a table of contents. I imagine that I should be using an Adobe product (€€€!) to do this, but any way to avoid that would be preferable.

Thanks in advance for any assistance!

Best Regards,
Kevin in Barcelona

[gwpriester]

Hi Kevin

No way that I am aware of. When Mike W or Pete swing through maybe they will have a better idea.

[mwenz]

Hah...not me.

As far as I know, XDP (what I use) can only export single-level bookmarks based upon page names. But, note I don't use XDP for any page layout, either, so it's entirely possible I have overlooked something.

Mike

[gwpriester]

OK I just exported a three page PDF document with named pages. When it opens in Acrobat there are no bookmarks.

[mwenz]

I just looked. In exporting, there is a check box for the bookmarks. Now, I have no idea if it works...

[Albacore]

Even with using the check box, I have not tried what you have asked, but from my own experience Xara's PDF does not produce API data. But we can have some because we have headers and footers in a hierarchical imposition of styles as you would need to have heading elements (H, H1, H2, ... H6) H and H1 at least. No you must be able to do as you ask but because I haven't upgraded I cant check. If I was in your shoes I would pop off an email to Xara Support and ask them.

See ages ago when Xar's text engine was not upto the task I bought Adobe CS Print so that gave me ID and Acro Pro and around the same time I again bought Serif P/Plus to do all these things with no real trouble so I have never thought to try it in Xara products.
I don't think it's a great trouble to do in Acro Pro as your PDF pages come in named and all you have to do is to "Shift Click" and "Drag" to produce "Table of Contents" and sort out the hierarchical development with more selecting and dragging.

[Gamerprinter]

Any PDF I intend for commercial publication, I run it through Acrobat Pro, after creating it in Xara, for bookmarks and to insure its in the most universal version of the format. Since I often create 100+ page documents and since Xara cannot really export graphics rich pages to PDF well, except in batches of 10 or so pages, I use Acrobat Pro to stitch those together anyway, so while once complete I create necessary bookmarks for final save. Then I upload it to various online sales platforms, and possible Print on Demand options as well.

[kevinburke]

Hi All,

Thanks for your replies and info, Xara support replied as well that it's not possible now but could be added in the future.

I see that a flat list of bookmarks is possible directly from XDP but the nested is trickier. I gave it a try with my PDF program NitroPDF, it can automatically create bookmarks based on text heading styles from XDP; it sort-of works but the results aren't consistent. I'll play with it a bit more to see if I can figure it out properly.

I suppose that this is really a DTP feature so I can't expect it in a graphics program, but it would be handy in the future when creating manuals, for now I'll just create them manually as Gamerprinter does.

Thanks to all for your quick and useful replies, much appreciated -- an excellent user forum for sure!
Cheers, Kevin

[gwpriester]

I am hoping the next release of Designer Pro has a lot more DTP support, Kevin.

[tonylondon]

Lets hope so, Gary!