Adobe rules the roost when it comes to the Portable Document Format (PDF). Like it or hate it.

Even as Adobe Reader puffed up with importance and size, free PDF alternatives4 Very Light Alternatives to Adobe Reader4 Very Light Alternatives to Adobe ReaderAre you still using Adobe Reader for PDF documents? It's time to move on to an alternative PDF reader that is lightweight, launches quickly, and yet keeps your documents save.Read More have romped into the scene. They brought in new features and some you could only find in the commercial Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, the paid big brother of the still free Adobe Acrobat Reader DC.

There are still good reasons to use it. A better typography engine, support for 3D content, and the bridge to the Adobe Document Cloud is on top of the list. You have 2 GB of free storage there in the cloud. And, then there are many good reasons to avoid Acrobat ReaderThis Is Why You Don't Need Adobe ReaderThis Is Why You Don't Need Adobe ReaderAdobe Reader is bloated, slow, and a liability. In short, it's unnecessary. Do you need a PDF Reader at all? We show you how to open PDF files without Adobe Reader.Read More.

If you have gone either way, then you will have to live with the pros and cons of both. But, as a layman, I miss one of the most basic features it should have in an application it calls a “Reader”:

You can’t bookmark a page in a PDF document you open with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Imagine you are reading A Game of Thrones (the first book of the A Song of Ice and Fire series). You just left it on Page Number 312. Leaving aside the fact that you should never read it in the PDF, how are you supposed to come back to the same page when you start reading again?

The problem is still unresolved. Adobe has a handy bookmark tool on the left sidebar. But you cannot create your own from there. So, let’s create a few workarounds and solve the bookmark problem.

The Easy Way to Remember a Page in Adobe Reader

Adobe Reader does not let you create and place new bookmarks, but there’s one little setting you can apply that will help the software remember the last page that was opened by the PDF reader. It is “technically” not a bookmark, but it’s a simple checkmark that you should enable always.

Follow the steps below to enable the native feature.

1. Go to Edit > Preferences (Windows) or Acrobat / Adobe Acrobat Reader > Preferences (Mac OS). You can also use the keyboard shortcut Control + K.
2. Click on Documents under the listed categories on the left.
3. As shown in the screenshot below, enable the feature that says – Restore last view settings when reopening documents. Click OK and exit.

Now, open any number of PDF documents; Adobe Reader remembers the page you left it at. This may not be a bookmarking solution, may not give you the option to mark out multiple points in a book, but is a simple elegant answer to our basic requirement when we open up an ebook in a PDF readerThe 6 Best PDF Readers for Windows in 2019The 6 Best PDF Readers for Windows in 2019The best PDF readers don't cost any money. Read our roundup of feature-rich PDF viewers that out perform even Adobe Reader.Read More.

Use the Markup Tools

The Markup tools provide two distinct workarounds for creating a bookmark.

Highlight Text to Mimic a Bookmark

You may not be someone who highlights and annotates PDF documents5 Free Tools to Edit PDF Files5 Free Tools to Edit PDF FilesPDFs are universally useful. However, they fall short when it comes to editing. We're here to show you the best free tools to edit your PDF files.Read More. Use this feature to bookmark the last read place if you use the Highlight feature in Acrobat Reader sparingly.

1. The Highlight tool is represented by the symbol of a pen in the Adobe Reader’s toolbar. Click on it to activate the highlighter.
2. Highlight the part of the text which you want to “bookmark” and come back to later. Save the PDF when you close the Reader.
3. Scrolling through the pages to arrive at the marked-up highlight can be a chore. Use the Thumbnails view on the left sidebar instead.

Remember, you can always delete the highlight as you move ahead through the document. Right-click on the highlighted text (or image) and select Delete from the context menu that pops up.

Bookmark with a Sticky Note and a Comment

Use a similar approach with the Sticky Note tool on the toolbar. It is the most common way to add a comment to a PDF file. You can spot it right next to the Highlight pen. The Sticky Note also gives you the advantage of a timestamp and a text area where you can add your own comments — in the best traditions of adding book notes to the margins.

Now, you can easily jump to the specific comment you added to the note. Open the PDF document in the Acrobat Reader.

1. Go to View > Tools > Comment> Open.
2. The Comments list appears in the right pane of the document window. It displays all comments in a PDF and also displays a toolbar with common options, such as sorting, filtering, and other options to work with comments. Click on the comment and jump to the specific location in the document.

Did you notice the many annotations and drawing markup tools in the comment toolbar? These options are incredibly powerful ways to make your reading more immersive and involved. The complete breakdown of each tool is outside the scope of this article, but this Adobe Help page will take you through them all.

You can use the text and drawing tools in the toolbar to mark segments or sentences that are significant. The best way to remember all that you readHow to Remember What You Read Using Simple ToolsHow to Remember What You Read Using Simple ToolsReading more won't do you any good if you can't retain anything that you read. Use these tips when you find it difficult to remember what you read.Read More is to connect the information to details that exist outside the PDF document.

But, we still haven’t arrived at a precise way to bookmark a PDF document in the Acrobat Reader. It’s time to look at a hack supplied by a third-party.

A JavaScript Hack that Works with Adobe Acrobat

Call this a plug-in or an Adobe hack, but it is the only solution I could find to deliberately introduce a bookmarking feature in Adobe Reader. The small 5 KB JavaScript file is packaged in a downloadable ZIP file at PDF Hacks.

1. Download and unzip the small file. Copy the file (“bookmark_page”) into your Acrobat Reader JavaScript’s directory. In my Windows 10 machine it is located at – C:Program FilesAdobeAcrobat Reader DCReaderJavascripts.
2. Launch a PDF file with Adobe Acrobat Reader and open the View menu. Four new items are clearly visible on the menu:
   > Bookmark This page.
   > Go To Bookmark.
   > Remove a Bookmark.
   > Clear Bookmarks.
3. The numbers (5,6) next to the top two options refer to the keyboard shortcut keys.
4. The functions are pretty much self-explanatory. From the page you want to bookmark, click on Bookmark This Page. The following box opens up and you can assign a name to the bookmark.
5. Clicking on Go To Bookmark opens up a floating box and a click on each takes you to each successive bookmark you have set. You can bookmark as many numbers of pages as you want.
6. The other two options in the menu are also clear. The Remove a Bookmark command allows you to remove a single bookmark and Clear Bookmarks wipes out all the bookmarks in one go.

Do Note: For some PDF files, the hack works smoothly. In others, you might get an internal error notification. To resolve it, go to Edit> Preferences. Scroll down the categories and select JavaScript. Place a check against Enable Acrobat JavaScript. Click OK and exit.

Is the Absence of a Bookmark Feature a Deal Breaker?

We still need our PDF files and a powerful readerWhat Is a PDF File and Why Do We Still Rely on Them?What Is a PDF File and Why Do We Still Rely on Them?PDFs have been around for over two decades. Let's find out how they came about, how they work, and why they're so popular years later.Read More. The Adobe Acrobat Reader is just that — a simple reader of PDF files. It is meant to be a stepping stone to the full-fledged Adobe Acrobat Pro DC which allows bookmark creation.

Over time, the free version has introduced the markup tools and better security features. But, coding in a bookmark structure is a different ballgame. So, tell us about your tryst with PDF bookmarks.

Do you know of any other way to bookmark ebooks in Adobe Reader? Which is your favorite PDF reader? Does it allow bookmarks?

Image Credit: mizar_219842/Depositphotos

Explore more about: Adobe Reader, Digital Document, Online Bookmarks, PDF.

1. I swear to God that the easiest way to bookmark a PDF file, is to open Notepad and write down, i am at page 58 of book xyz and then save it as a text file.

   I want to kill the scientists who made PDF 'standard'

   PDF IS THE WORST OF WORST TEXT FORMAT IMAGINABLE!!!!!!!

   RESET, and GO BACK TO PUTTING SCIENTIFIC TEXTS IN MICROSOFT WORD FORMAT!!!

   Most of the users in this world use microsoft, steve jobs is dead anyway, and Apple and Acrobat are in decline anyway. People only use acrobat because they are forced to, not because they want to!

   • Most free PDF reader alternatives allow you to bookmark pages for easy browsing. What's more, they also allow editing. I use Foxit to read, edit, and create bookmarks. It does everything and it's free. There are a bunch of great programs out there just like it, too, so you can find exactly what suits your needs with just a small amount of research. Acrobat only allows editing and bookmark creation in the paid version, which no one has because all the free ones are just as good. If I wanted to use a PDF reader to ONLY read, I'd use Sumatra PDF because it's optimized for that. The only reason I can think of that people would use the premium version is if the company they work for provides it and requires it.

2. Thanks for help with rembering page in acrobat reader,i read a lot and it was a huge problem until now.(Y).

3. thanks sir you resolve my big issue Windows 7 professional 64 bit iso download dell.

4. Khoob Bhalo,
   Thank You So very Much Dada. You solved an Age Old Problem for me.

5. Great help. These two tips indeed solved my bookmarking issues.
   Thanks Mr. Saikat Basu. Dora the explorer episodes list.

6. Great help. These tips indeed solved my bookmarking issues.
   Thank you Mr. Saikat Basu.

7. Sure, your hack works at least on my Adobe on Win 10. The issue I have with this hack is associating bookmarks to a specific PDF documents. After all on book A I have one set of bookmarks and on book B another. My understanding is that you have one set of bookmarks no matter for which PDF document: is this correct?

8. Thanks for your tips.
   Furthermore, I have found another way with basic tools of Adobe reader in order to bookmark. We can use comment tool to save bookmark and pick comment list to review.
   Hope to be helpful for you guys.

9. Thanks, been wanting to know how to do that for a while now!

10. Works fine in Adobe_Reader 9.
    Thanks for the tip..

11. The java program didn't work for me, i am happy with the Remember the last page in the Preference option. Its good enough for me to continue from where u last started.

12. I also have a very large PDF that didn't save the table of contents, however this hack worked beautifully. Wasn't sure if I needed to save the file so I did anyway, and when I went to View/Go To Bookmark sure enough a little box comes up with the 2 pages I marked. Perfect! Thank you!

13. This worked great for me, thanks!

14. Thanks a lot a lot.. this is very helpful and quenching

15. awesome stuff and very useful. Thanks

16. works, many thanks!

17. Good solution.

18. Good solution.
    It would be neat though if it were possible to integrate those bookmarks into the navigation pane.
    More straightforward access.
    The suggested software (pdfhacks) seems to be from 2004, a less privileged time for pdf stuff.
    Looking for alternatives.
    But great start! Thank you.

19. thank you for help me :)

20. How do I use the keyboard shortcuts, pressing 5 or 6 on my keyboard doesn't do anything. What am I doing wrong?

21. That is awesome! One Doubt, can i create nested bookmarks?

22. good

23. A handy solution for an important problem. Thank you so much!!

24. So simple yet so brilliant! Thank you!

25. Many thanks, you are so helpful

26. I tried to load it but keep getting an error. What am I doing wrong?

27. Worked like a champ. You saved me may waster minutes. Thanks!

28. very useful specially now that i'm pursuing my mba.thanks a lot.

29. I have also used sticky notes as de facto book marks. When you click on comments on the right-top corner of the document, it will list all of your sticky notes, and you can navigate through the document by clicking on them.

30. Thank you very much! This has been the perfect solution that I have been looking for for a long while.

31. superb thanks

32. Thank u soooooooooooo much....for this solution......it help's me a lot.....great work....

33. That was one easy solution. Just applied in my reader DC. Thanks.

34. Thanks a lot.. this is really awesome and works well

35. Thanks works great ! Finding this was a miracle since Adobe insist on calling table of content bookmarks so all you get when you google is how to create a table of content !

    I don't know why the have insisted of not including such an obvious feature on their reader, remembering I have to start scrolling my books just to find where I left of is enough for me to procrastinate on my reading !

    Again Thanks Alot

36. Here's what doesn't make sense.. When I opened my PDF ebook on the left hand side of Adobe Reader it says right there bookmarks and it has a list of each and every chapter and sub chapter and you can click on them. Although this bookmark feature does not bookmark/ save your page it makes me wonder what is the purpose of this bookmark feature in adobe reader if it doesn't do anything? I tried it and it wouldn't bookmark my ebook when I opened up the ebook again I was back to page 1 however using your methods described here did the trick. Just doesn't make sense especially since it's a feature I am sure many people will use.

37. Thanks a lot !

38. thanks..that was very useful.

39. Both work great, thanks!

40. Wonderful. so simple Thanks

41. thank you sir

42. Thanks a million, it works 100%! I've been looking for something like this for a long time.

43. Very nice fix, and a good example of technical communication.

44. It doesn't work for me! >:(

45. Thanks. Trying to study for a logistics course & was baffled as to why there wasn't a goddamn bookmark.

46. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

47. Very useful. Is there a way to make the bookmarks appear in a bookmark pane on the left?

    • Using the JavaScript hack opens up a floating box but not anything on the left pane.

48. That's great! I have to read large volumes of PDFs at the moment, and this is a godsend. T H A N K S.

49. Thanks!!
    Perfect for a pdf addicted like me.

50. Thank you so much for taking the time to post this info. This is exactly what I was looking for! :)

    • Thanks for the note of appreciation. That's fuel for us writers.

51. Tried this and it was just what i was looking for. I have a bunch of tech books to read and I was very frustrated by the lack of being able to bookmark where I left off. Thank you.

    • Glad it helped. I am still surprised that such a basic thing isn't part of Adobe Reader.

52. It works great in the first document I read, but then all the bookmarks show up in the next one, too! Can you help fix this?

    Thank you.

    • Never mind! I found the answer: apparently the bookmarks you create persist across sessions because the data is stored in a persistent, global JavaScript variable. So that's the way it is, apparently.

    • having the same problem.. how did you fix it?

53. Worked for me. Thank you.

54. Adobe is so stupid, why would they call table of contents, 'bookmarks'? It should be as simple as view/add bookmark.

55. It worked ! Great help. thx

56. When all else fails, you can insert a text. I go to Chapter 1 of my book and insert a text that says 'Chapter 1' then when I have to refer to it I do a Ctrl F 'Chapter 1'

57. 9. Ggarlic 2008/04/06 12:36 ls???Acrobat????????acrobat????????????????adobe rdaeer?acrobatdolph 2008/04/06 22:25reader??????acrobatacrobat rdaeer??????????acrobat rdaeer speedup ???????????????????????pdf??????????????????????????acrobat rdaeer????????????dolph 2008/04/06 22:26???acrobat rdaeer ???????????Nice 2008/04/07 03:49???? Acrobat ????????????????????????????????????????????????????……Nice 2008/04/07 03:50SP 1?“??????????”

58. thanks for this. I had stopped using Adobe Reader and switched to Foxit because of bookmarks!

59. it worked great.I like it

Adobe Acrobat Reader DC

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Adobe Acrobat Reader DC software is the free global standard for reliably viewing, printing, and commenting on PDF documents.

And now, it's connected to the Adobe Document Cloud − making it easier than ever to work across computers and mobile devices.

It's the only PDF viewer that can open and interact with all types of PDF content, including forms and multimedia.

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