Add a custom bookmark in PDF output

Generally, the TOC in a DITA map is replicated as bookmarks in the final PDF output, including the Contents title that opens the TOC page when selected. This TOC is created from the topic or section titles in your DITA map.

At times you may want to add a custom bookmark on a particular content in your PDF output for easy navigation. This can be achieved by adding an outputclass attribute on the element and applying the following attribute to it:

bookmark-level: 3

Here, the bookmark-level is an attribute and number 3 is the value that indicates the level in the bookmark hierarchy where the bookmark is added. In the following example, the first-level topic “Contacts” has a table, “Contact list” on which we have added an outputclass attribute with the value of custom-bookmark.

{width="500"}

The following definition of the custom-bookmark class is added in the CSS file:

…
/*Adding a custom bookmark*/
.custom-bookmark{
    bookmark-level: 2
}
…

In the PDF output, the Contact list table is added at the 2nd level in the PDF bookmark list, as shown below:

{width="300"}

Removing the Contents title from the PDF output bookmarks

If you do not want to include the Contents title in the PDF output, you can remove it by placing the Contents within <p> element instead of <h1> element.

The step by step process to remove the Contens title from bookmarks is as follows:

Before the change:

<h1 class="toc-title">Contents</h1>

After the change:

<p class="toc-title">Contents</p>

Save the changes and re-generate the output.