This method is preferable if you need to compose one or more pages of text at the beginning of each section or chapter in your PDF file. Since this is so you may as well take advantage of MS Word's navigation feature: Table of Contents. Word will automatically create the links to various parts of your PDF, instead of you having to manually create them in Acrobat.
When combining files into a PDF file, it's important to remember that Acrobat is not a content creation tool, so much as a document publishing tool. The distinction is important, because you wish to create the outline or skeleton of your PDF file in Microsoft Word, and add it after you have assembled and arranged all the contents of your PDF file or document. Since editing files in Acrobat is not efficient, you want to avoid having to make changes to the PDF once the skeleton, or table of contents, is developed and added to the PDF. If you need to subsequently make lots of changes to the contents, organization, and the table of contents of your PDF document, you may find it's easier just to recompile your files into another PDF, rather than attempt to make changes to the table of contents of your existing PDF, within Acrobat.
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If you elect to add, remove, or just move sections around, that's simply a matter of using the tools fond in the Organize Pages screen, and the previous instructions.
But editing the Table of Contents is another matter. While viewing Modifying your Table of Contents , click the "Edit PDF" Icon on the right.
This will create text boxes around your Table of Contents list. You can click inside, and type in the new item, just as you would in Word.
Then, click "Link" on the upper toolbar.
Adobe highlights the spaces where links work in the Table of Contents. Now that you added a line (or lines) to the Table, the links going to various pages, below the new additions you typed into the Table of Contents, do not properly light up with their corresponding text. Rearrage them accordingly by clicking and dragging the link spaces.
Again, click "Link" on the upper toolbar, and choose "Add/Edit Web or Document Link."
Click and drag with your mouse, to create a new link space. Follow the steps in the dialog/pop-up boxes to create the link:
- For Link Type use "Invisible Rectangle."
- Link Action should be "Go to a page view."
- Follow Acrobat's instructions to establish the page to which the new link will go.
As you can see there's a lot of steps and some careful mouse-work to edit the Table of Contents in Adobe. For this reason, try to assemble everything you need, and build your Table of Contents and Section Pages in MS Word, first. If you have extensive edits to make to a Portfolio, consider recompiling it a new PDF file.
PDF Portfolio feature in Acrobat
In this mode Acrobat creates a PDF container that includes files in their original format. Thus, a .pptx file is still editable (and probably extractable) as .pptx. When viewed in Acrobat Reader, these files are still in their original format. This could cause complications for less patient readers, since A-Reader does not automatically preview these files. Adobe purports to include web pages, but in my test it handled https://www.canisius.edu/academics/office-academic-affairs/academic-institutes-and-centers/center-online-learning-innovation poorly.
In short, this is too complicated for most who might read a PDF portfolio, and would result in an untenable support burden for COLI. presents additional complications, however. Here's a tutorial showing how to do that:
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As indicated in the video, if you plan to make extensive changes, it may not be worth modifying an existing file. Instead, you might just compile another, and (re)build the table of contents and section-starting pages in MS Word.
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Resources
Adobe Acrobat's User Guide and Tutorials: https://helpx.adobe.com/support/acrobat.html
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