PDFOutliner 1.7

PDFOutliner automates the process of generating a table of contents for PDF documents. The application is very easy to use; in fact, you can get the work done in a series of simple steps.

Luckily, there is a very detailed user guide to help you find your way more easily. What is more, the user guide is actually loaded as a sample for you to try the tool.

The app’s interface is neat and straightforward. You can preview the contents of the file you have loaded in the center while the panel on the left shows thumbnails of the pages to facilitate navigation. On the right, you can find the table of contents and the list of font styles used for each heading level.

PDFOutliner generates the TOC of a document based on the fonts used. This way, for the automatic mode to work, the headings should have a format different from that used in the body text. Luckily, it supports four automatic modes and a manual one to create tables of contents.

In MiniTOC mode, you should select a sample of a heading text and press the corresponding button. The tool can automatically identify similarly styled text to create a list of headings. Unfortunately, this method has the limitation of not supporting multiple TOC levels. AutoDoc mode, in turn, can overcome the limitation above as it works with different heading styles, which are shown in the Styles table. Luckily, you can delete a style you do not want to appear as a heading. Again, just push a button and the app will do the rest of the work.

There is another mode, called Repeatable AutoTOC, which consists of reusing a set of styles you have previously saved in a plain-text file. Then, the last of the automatic modes is called Bot for Rapid AutoTOC, which automates a series of steps, like importing a set of styles, clicking on the AutoTOC button, promoting the child TOV items and deleting the AutoTOC item.

Last but not least, constructing a table of contents manually is also supported. This works quite the same as you create a TOC with various PDF elements. The manual mode is often used when the source file is scanned PDF or the result of OCR, in which font styles are generally confusing or absent. This same editing procedure can be used to modify an automatically generated TOC.

All in all, PDFOutliner certainly boosts your productivity when you need to create well-organized and easy-navigable PDF documents. In this respect, the app may come in especially handy for adding tables of contents to PDF documents created in some word processors. Unfortunately, you may think that it is not worthy to buy a product that cannot do anything else. For instance, OCR capabilities would be a great addition. There is a trial version of this app available on their site and, if you like it, you can purchase it from the Mac Store.