How to export PowerPoint 2016 to PDF with bookmarks ?

Question

Hi,

is there a way how to export PPT presentation (Office 2016) to PDF _WITH_ bookmarks ?

Ideally with some automated way via style or some tags which will create hierarchy like header1 - section delimiting slides , header2 sub-sections pointing to minor slides with text/content. Building TOC (Table of Content). this way.

I have tried to find reasonable solution, but it appears from search results on google that some versions like 2010 had some option in export to make bookmarks. And described option is missing in later PowerPoint.

Search in this Community unfortunately result in links to topics which are completely irrelevant to export, pdf, or bookmarks.

For a first look it might seems that text editing options are very similar in Word, PowerPoint, OneNote .. but details like Styles, TOC, exports seems to me completely different and incompatible. And none of those products so far seems to be able to make reasonable presentation from my remarks with ability to create PDF with bookmarks pointing interactively to content and also referring to proper page/slide numbers.

I had to choose that this question fall into a specific category etc. Kindly comment even if the topic/issue is somehow doable in newer Office versions or via 3rd party plugins/apps (like I tested Onetastic and Gem for OneNote plugins).

Answer 1

I tested Adobe Acrobat and found that the Acrobat PDFMaker add-in will create bookmarks from PowerPoint headings, as you were hoping. In addition, it allows you to attach the PowerPoint file to the PDF, which makes it easier to keep the 2 files co-ordinated. The main problem is the cost of the software. A student and teacher edition is available for US$119.

OneNote is good for collecting information. It's unfortunate that Microsoft killed off the version you're using, that limits its future. Here's a page that gives ideas about presenting directly from OneNote without using PowerPoint.

Answer 2

Hi John,

my goal is to have some platform to organize my notes and snippets of info. Those are pictures/screenshots, snippets of tech documentation, code snippets or CLI/shell outputs. Mixed with my own text notes.

I'd like to have those organized and searchable.

In the past I used folders, text files, and files in general, searchable via find/grep and similar linux tools, as I use Ubuntu embedded into Win10 Pro.

For past year++ I'm trying to use One Note 2016 (specifically 2016, as the one from Win10 shop has less features/options).

And from those notes I'd like to compose training materials. But I have no access to OneNote for schools.

At the moment I do create PowerPoint presentations manually, and export those to PDF (without bookmarks/TOC) as slide previous for students, or handouts for lab. Bookmarks might be made manually via PDF editor, but it's a bit tedious and needs 3rd party tools.

Ideal state I was thinking about is either some export from OneNote to PowerPoint, or direct presentations from OneNote. All with ability to provide PDF with table of content and bookmarks. Ideally clickable so easily navigate through training chapters. Bookmarks/TOC generated either from formatting or some tags, but automatically and with option to adjust manually and re-generate when needed due to materials evolution.

Answer 3

It's possible to create a PDF from a Word document with bookmarks, because Word has it's own style of bookmarks and Acrobat PDFMaker can translate them to PDF bookmarks.

But PowerPoint doesn't have bookmarks. Slide titles aren't the same thing.

Please supply more detail about the task you are trying to accomplish, and we may be able to supply alternate methods of reaching that goal.