Overview
Validate Bookmarks checks every bookmark in the active PDF and writes a report to a text file. It finds bookmarks that do nothing when clicked, that point at a page or a named destination the document does not have, that reference a file which is no longer on disk, or that have no title at all.
When the run finishes, a summary tells you how many bookmarks were checked and how many problems were found, and offers to open the report.
How to use
- Open the PDF you want to validate.
- Go to Plug-Ins > Bookmarks > Validate Bookmarks.
- In the Save dialog, choose a location and filename for the report (defaults to
.txt). - Click Save to run the check.
- Read the summary, and click OK to open the report if you want the detail.
What the report checks
| Check | Description |
|---|---|
| Empty title | The bookmark has no title, so it shows as a blank row in the Bookmarks pane. |
| No action and no destination | Clicking the bookmark in Acrobat would do nothing. |
| Invalid page in destination | A destination or a GoTo / GoToR action references a page
that is null or missing from the destination array. |
| Destination page is outside the document | The destination names a page number this PDF does not have — the usual result of deleting pages after the bookmarks were made. |
| Named destination does not exist | The bookmark points at a named destination that is in neither the /Dests
name tree nor the catalog's /Dests dictionary. |
| No target file reference | A GoToR (Go To Remote) action is missing its file specification entry. |
| Invalid file path destination | A GoToR or Launch action references a file that does not
exist on disk. |
| No file destination or valid platform data | A Launch action has no file reference and no platform-specific
(Windows, Mac, Unix) launch data. |
| Web link has no address / no scheme | A URI action has an empty address, or one without a scheme such as
https://. www.example.com on its own is not a URL and
Acrobat will not open it. |
Report format
The report opens with the PDF file path, a timestamp, and three counts: bookmarks checked, problems found, and targets that could not be verified. If nothing is wrong it says No problems found rather than leaving you to guess from an empty file.
Below the counts, findings are listed under Problems and
Could not be verified. Each entry gives the bookmark's level and its full
path through the tree (Chapter 1 > Section 1.2), then the problem on the
line beneath.
What is not treated as a problem
- A bookmark with children but no action is a heading that groups the bookmarks below it. Doing nothing when clicked is what it is for, so it is not reported.
- Targets on network shares and UNC paths are listed under Could not be verified rather than opened. Reaching out to a path taken from PDF content could leak your Windows credentials to whoever wrote the file, so a broken remote target cannot be told apart here from one that is merely offline.
-
For a
GoToRaction the page number belongs to the other file, so only the shape of the destination is judged — not whether that page exists.
Tip
Run validation after merging PDFs, deleting pages, or reorganising bookmarks to catch any broken destinations before distributing the document.
Note
Validation is read-only — it does not modify any bookmarks. Use the report to identify problems, then fix them manually or with other bookmark tools. To check links and bookmarks together, and optionally delete the broken ones, use Create Link Report or Cleanup Links and Bookmarks.