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Inserting/Adding Bookmarks To PDF Documents Exported From Reports

Would you like to add navigational features to PDF documents exported from your reports? This article will give you a startup on how to do this using eDocEngine VCL.

By S. Vikram & S. Bhamini

PDF documents support features to facilitate navigation through the pages of the document. One such feature is bookmarks. Using Gnostice eDocEngine, you could export your reports to PDF and while doing so, you could also add bookmarks to the PDF document. This will enable user of the PDF documents, your customers, to browse through the PDF document with great ease. This article will provide you with an example of how this can be done.

The following example demonstrates using PDF Engine component along with Rave Export Interface component to export the Rave reports to PDF and also to add bookmarks to the PDF. However, you could use the same code to achieve this with other reporting tools.

• Add gtPDFEngine and gtRaveExportInterface components to your project, for exporting the reports to PDF
  • Drop the gtPDFEngine component on the main form of the project from the "eDocEngine" palette in Delphi.
  • Drop the gtRaveExportInterface component on the main form of the project from the "eDocEngine Additionals" palette in Delphi.
  • Connect the Engine property of the gtRaveExportInterface to gtPDFEngine.
  • Set the properties of PDFEngine if required. See screenshot.
• Add the bookmarks in code and export
  • Handle the OnBeforeEndPage event of gtPDFEngine to write code for adding bookmarks.
  • Use the Sender parameter in the event handler to access other Engine properties.
  • Run the project and export the report to PDF. See screenshot.

  procedure TForm1.gtPDFEngine1BeforeEndPage(
                       Sender: TgtCustomDocumentEngine);
  begin
    with (Sender as TgtPDFEngine) do
    begin
      AddTOCItem('Page No - ' + IntToStr(CurrentPage),
                 -1,
                 CurrentPage, 0);
    end;
  end;
     

• Verify in Acrobat Reader if the bookmarks are added
  • Open the generated PDF in Acrobat Reader.
  • Choose View | Navigation Panels | Bookmarks menu option to open the bookmark panel.
  • You should now see the bookmarks linking to the pages in the PDF. See screenshot.

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Downloads:

• SampleOutputPDF.zip: PDF generated with one of the reports in the demo
• SampleDemo.zip: Sample project illustrating the tip
• ExecutableDemo.zip: An executable demo

NOTE: You would require the minor bug-fix on the version 2.43 of Gnostice eDocEngine, for this tip to work correctly. If you have not received this fix, please get back to Gnostice Support with your order details.