About Named Destinations — TOC Builder Help

What is a named destination?

A named destination is a permanent label attached to a specific view inside a PDF — not just the page, but the scroll position and zoom level as well. You give that view a name, such as Chapter_3_Intro, and from then on anything that needs to jump there can ask for it by name.

The document keeps a list of these names. A link, a bookmark, a script or a URL from outside the file can all refer to the same name, and they all land in the same place.

Why use one instead of a page number?

By default a link or bookmark stores a direct page reference: go to page 12. A named destination stores a label instead: go to Chapter_3_Intro. The difference shows up as soon as the document changes.

Direct page reference

The link records “page 12”.

Insert a cover page at the front and Chapter 3 is now on page 13 — but the link still goes to page 12. It is now silently wrong, and so is every other link in the file.

Named destination

The link records “Chapter_3_Intro”.

Insert the same cover page and the label moves with its content. The link still lands on Chapter 3, and so does everything else pointing at that name.

The practical benefits:

Survives editing. Pages can be inserted, deleted, reordered or merged without breaking navigation.
One target, many references. Dozens of links can share a single destination; move it once and they all follow.
Readable and reusable. A name means something to a person and to a script, in a way that “page 12” does not.
Addressable from outside the PDF. See below.

Linking from outside the document

This is the part that is easy to miss. A named destination can be reached directly from a web page, another PDF, an email or a script by appending # and the name to the file reference:

Reference	Opens
`report.pdf#Chapter_3_Intro`	The file, scrolled and zoomed to that exact view.
`https://example.com/docs/report.pdf#Safety_Notice`	The same, served over the web.

Export Destination URLs generates this list for you: give it a base URL and it writes out a ready-made link for every named destination in the document.

Choosing good names

Because the name is the address, it is worth spending a moment on it. Several commands generate names from a pattern, and the default patterns favour uniqueness over readability — something like Dest_Page_3_Annot_0.

That works, but it throws away most of the benefit: it is not meaningful to a reader, and it is not a URL anyone would want to publish. Where a command offers a {link_text}, {bookmark_title} or similar placeholder, prefer it — report.pdf#Safety_Notice is far more useful than report.pdf#Dest_Page_3_Annot_0.

Keep names stable — a published URL is a promise.
Avoid spaces and punctuation; they have to be escaped in URLs.
Make them unique. Duplicate names are flagged in the preview before you commit.

Tip

The Sanitize names option in Convert Bookmarks to Named Destinations strips characters that would need escaping, so bookmark titles can be used directly as destination names.

Things to watch for

Renaming breaks references

Anything already pointing at a destination — links inside the file, bookmarks, and any URL published elsewhere — refers to it by name. Renaming or deleting a destination breaks all of them, and nothing outside the PDF can warn you. Decide on names before you publish.

A destination records a view, so it also captures the zoom setting in effect when it was created.
Not every PDF viewer honours the #name URL form. Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader do; some browsers' built-in viewers do not.
Destinations are stored per document. Merging files can bring in duplicate names, which is why the conversion commands offer overwrite / skip / rename policies.

Commands that work with named destinations

Command	What it does
Convert Links to Named Destinations	Replaces each link's direct page reference with a named destination.
Convert Bookmarks to Named Destinations	Creates a destination for each bookmark target, named from the bookmark title.
Create Destinations from Links	Creates destinations at link targets, leaving the links themselves unchanged.
Create Destinations from Highlights	Turns highlighted or underlined passages into named destinations.
Create Bookmarks from Named Destinations	The reverse: builds a bookmark for each existing destination.
Export Destination URLs	Writes out a `file.pdf#name` URL for every destination.
Export Named Destinations	Saves the destination list to a text file.
Import Named Destinations	Recreates destinations in another document from such a file.