How can I generate a PDF index from pdfLaTeX?

Question

I often generate reports from pdfLaTeX using TeXworks, and would like to generate a document index, which will appear in the sidebar of a PDF viewer, (e.g. evince, Adobe Reader). Are there any packages which will allow me to do so?

Solution 1

Just add the following to the preamble of your document:

\usepackage[bookmarks]{hyperref}

The bookmarks option generates this "index" by adding bookmarks for sections and lists (of figures, of equations, and so on).

Besides, using this will turn references and urls inside the documents into links, making your document "browseable".

Solution 2

just wanted to add that this (using the package hyperref for getting the pdf-index) works when usig pdflatex and not when using latex->dvips->ps2pdf (don't know about the other alternatives)

i recently found out that using pdftex is apparently the best choice when you don't need the ps output