How-to guides/Document Structure

Add bookmarks (outline) to a PDF in Rust

Build a nested bookmark outline and attach it to any PDF. Bookmarks appear in the navigation panel of PDF viewers and make long documents easier to navigate.

rust
use pdfluent::{PdfDocument, Outline, OutlineItem};

fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    let mut doc = PdfDocument::open("report.pdf")?;

    let outline = Outline::new()
        .add(OutlineItem::new("Introduction").page(0))
        .add(OutlineItem::new("Chapter 1: Setup").page(2)
            .child(OutlineItem::new("Installation").page(3))
            .child(OutlineItem::new("Configuration").page(5)))
        .add(OutlineItem::new("Chapter 2: Usage").page(8))
        .add(OutlineItem::new("Conclusion").page(14));

    doc.set_outline(outline)?;
    doc.save("report_with_bookmarks.pdf")?;
    Ok(())
}
Install:cargo add pdfluentDownload SDK →

Step by step

1

Add PDFluent to your project

Add the pdfluent crate to Cargo.toml.

rust
[dependencies]
pdfluent = "0.9"
2

Open the PDF

Load the PDF you want to add bookmarks to. The document must already exist; bookmarks reference page indices in the file.

rust
use pdfluent::PdfDocument;

let mut doc = PdfDocument::open("manual.pdf")?;
println!("Pages: {}", doc.page_count());
3

Build the outline structure

Create an Outline and add OutlineItem entries. Each item needs a title and a target page index (zero-based). Nest children with .child().

rust
use pdfluent::{Outline, OutlineItem};

let outline = Outline::new()
    .add(OutlineItem::new("Cover").page(0))
    .add(OutlineItem::new("Table of Contents").page(1))
    .add(OutlineItem::new("Part I: Basics").page(2)
        .child(OutlineItem::new("Chapter 1").page(2))
        .child(OutlineItem::new("Chapter 2").page(6)))
    .add(OutlineItem::new("Part II: Advanced").page(10)
        .child(OutlineItem::new("Chapter 3").page(10))
        .child(OutlineItem::new("Chapter 4").page(14)))
    .add(OutlineItem::new("Index").page(18));
4

Set the outline on the document

Call set_outline() to replace any existing bookmark tree with the new one. The previous outline is discarded.

rust
doc.set_outline(outline)?;
5

Save the document

Write the PDF with the new bookmark tree to disk.

rust
doc.save("manual_with_bookmarks.pdf")?;
println!("Bookmarks written.");

Notes and tips

  • Page indices in OutlineItem are zero-based. Page 1 in the viewer is index 0.
  • Nesting depth is unlimited, but most PDF viewers display up to 3-4 levels in the outline panel.
  • set_outline() replaces the entire outline. To append to an existing outline, read it first with doc.outline(), modify the tree, then set it back.
  • OutlineItem also accepts a named destination with .destination("dest_name") instead of a page index.

Why PDFluent for this

Pure Rust

No JVM, no runtime, no DLL dependencies. Ships as a single native binary or WASM module.

Memory safe

Rust's ownership model prevents buffer overflows and use-after-free. No segfaults in PDF parsing.

Runs anywhere

Same code runs server-side, in Docker, on AWS Lambda, on Cloudflare Workers, or in the browser via WASM.

Frequently asked questions

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