pdfaddtoc

main.tex is a LaTeX template designed to enhance a PDF document by adding a navigable table of contents using the pdfpages and hyperref packages. The template allows users to manually add customizable outlines that link to any page with a desired title by recompiling a pdf file, as well as generates a new table of contents page.

This template can be incredibly useful when you need to read a PDF file on a computer, but the outline is missing. Without an outline, it can be difficult to navigate to a specific chapter or section. By recompiling the PDF file with main.tex, users can easily create a navigable table of contents and access specific sections quickly. This can save time and improve the overall reading experience.

Installation

All you need is a text editor and a latex compile you like.

It is suggested to use the texlive docker image. In my own experience, installing LaTeX may be troublesome, especially if you accidentally miss some packages during installation. The official docker image includes everything you need and it is easy to install (and uninstall).

Sample Usages

Below are two examples:

• toy-example: a simple example that helps user know how main.tex works.
• merge-lecture-notes: merge lecture notes (pdf slides) into a single file with TOC added.

Toy Example

See the files under the examples/toy-example directory.

In this toy example, we have a book-no-outline.pdf that looks like any pdf files you download on the internet. (Note: This file is compiled from book.tex, where outline is not added on purpose. A similar file, book-outline.pdf, is the version that is compiled with outline.)

To add a table of contents using main.tex, users can manually edit the file by adding the \includepdf command. An example usage of the command is shown below:

\includepdf[pages={4-6},pagecommand=\thispagestyle{mystyle},addtotoc={
    4,chapter,1,{This is a title},chap:ch1,
    4,section,2,{This is a subtitle},sec:ch1-1
}]{book-no-outline.pdf}

The command includes pages 4 to 6 of the book-no-outline.pdf file and configures the page with a self-defined page style called mystyle. The table of contents is generated using the addtotoc option and includes two entries:

• The first entry links to page 4 and is a chapter with level 1 titled "This is a title". The chapter is labeled with chap:ch1 in the LaTeX file.
• The second entry links to page 4 and is a section with level 2 titled "This is a subtitle". The section is labeled with sec:ch1-1 in the LaTeX file.

Finally, build.sh is a simple script that compiles main.tex. It uses the xelatex compiler. Usually users need to compile main.tex twice to generate the table of contents, which is automatically done in build.sh.

The generated pdf file is default named as main.pdf that comes with a pdf outline :)

For detailed usage of the command, please refer to the documentation of pdfpages package.

The build.sh utilize the xelatex in the texlive docker image, which can be installed from dockerhub.

Merge Lecture Notes with TOC

See the files under the examples/merge-lecture-notes directory.

Consider a scenario where lecture notes are provided in separate files, chapter by chapter. This may be challenging to search for specific information across multiple files. It would be useful to merge all the files into a single document while maintaining an outline of the chapters. By doing so, you can easily search for relevant content throughout the entire document without having to switch between different files, while preserving the convenience to navigate to a specific chapter.

I believe this happens commonly in college, so I will use a course I've taken to demo.

The main.tex merges all lecture notes (lecture1.pdf to lecture24.pdf) and it it does not generate an addition TOC page. Also it preserves most of the page settings of the original lecture notes.

Thanks

I am inspired by and learnt a lot from this blog.