Create Destinations from Text Highlights

Overview

Create Destinations from Text Highlights scans markup annotations in your PDF and generates named destinations from the highlighted text. The text content of each annotation becomes the destination name, and the destination is stored in the document’s Dests name tree. These destinations can then be used to build bookmarks, links, or other navigation workflows that target the same highlighted passages.

How to use

  1. Open a PDF that contains markup annotations (highlights, underlines, squigglies, or strikeouts).
  2. Go to Plug-Ins > Utilities > Create Destinations from Text Highlights.
  3. Select which pages to scan and which annotation types to include.
  4. Optionally filter by page type (all, even, or odd pages).
  5. Click OK to create the destinations.

Page selection

OptionDescription
All pages Scans every page in the document.
Current page Scans only the page currently shown in the viewer.
Page range Scans a continuous range. Enter a start page and an end page (or choose End of File from the dropdown).
Custom page range Enter a comma-separated list of pages and ranges, e.g. 1-3,6,10-12.

Page type filter

An additional dropdown lets you restrict the selected pages to a subset:

OptionDescription
All Pages No additional filtering; processes every page in the selection.
Even Pages Processes only even-numbered pages within the selection.
Odd Pages Processes only odd-numbered pages within the selection.

Annotation type filter

Check one or more annotation types to include. At least one type must be selected for the OK button to be enabled.

Tip

Combine this feature with Highlight Text Patterns to first mark important terms, then automatically create named destinations at each marked location.

Note

The text inside each annotation becomes the destination name. If multiple annotations contain identical text, the destination names will repeat. Very long highlighted selections can produce long destination names.

See also