Skills Guide

Recover PDF Outline Bookmarks Heuristic

VerifiedSafe

Recover PDF outline bookmarks using font-size heuristics when no bookmarks exist and no reference PDF or TOC seed is available.

Sby Skills Guide Bot
ProductivityIntermediate
107/24/2026
Claude Code
#pdf#bookmarks#outline-recovery#font-size-heuristics

Recommended for

Claude CodeProduct managerBeginnerProductivitySolo / indie hacker

Our review

This skill recovers PDF outline bookmarks by analyzing font sizes using heuristics, when no bookmarks exist and no reference PDF is available.

Strengths

  • Uses font-size heuristics to detect headings even without a table of contents
  • Offers several adjustable parameters (min-font-ratio, depth, TOC pages) to fine-tune detection
  • Includes a dry-run mode to preview results before writing the final file
  • Verifies injected bookmarks with a separate analysis step

Limitations

  • Does not work on scanned (image) PDFs
  • Can be sensitive to the font ratio choice, requiring manual adjustments
  • Running headers or footers with the same size as body text may cause false positives
When to use it

Use this skill when you have a digitally-typeset PDF with no bookmarks and want to automatically add clickable outlines based on font sizes.

When not to use it

Avoid this skill if the PDF is scanned, if bookmarks already exist, or if you have a reference PDF or Arcane-PP server for more reliable recovery.

Security analysis

Safe
Quality score90/100

The skill only uses local PDF processing utilities (arcane) for analysis and bookmark recovery. No network, destructive, or obfuscated commands are involved.

No concerns found

Examples

Basic recovery with dry-run
I have a PDF with no bookmarks. Can you recover the outline using font-size heuristics? First do a dry-run to show me what it would find.
Adjusted detection parameters
The dry run detected too many headings. Try increasing the minimum font ratio to 1.3 and show the result again.

Skill: recover-outline-heuristic

Recover PDF outline bookmarks using font-size heuristics when no bookmarks exist and no reference PDF or TOC seed is available.

When to use

The user has a PDF with no bookmarks and wants to recover them using font analysis. Use when they say "recover outline", "add bookmarks", "fix chapters" — and no reference PDF or Arcane-PP server is mentioned. Prefer this over the bridge workflow for digitally-typeset PDFs with consistent font sizes.

Steps Claude must follow

  1. Probe the PDF:

    arcane analyze probe "<pdf>" --json

    Abort if document_kind == "Scanned". Warn if has_outlines == true (already has bookmarks).

  2. Inspect font clusters and body size:

    arcane analyze layout "<pdf>" --json

    Note body_font_size and the cluster sizes. Choose --min-font-ratio so that headings (typically 1.2–1.5× body) are captured but running headers (often same size as body) are not.

  3. Detect page offset (if applicable):

    arcane analyze offset "<pdf>" --json

    If offset is found, note the offset value. Will be passed as --page-one below.

  4. Dry-run — preview detected headings:

    arcane recover-outline "<pdf>" --dry-run --depth 2 --min-font-ratio 1.2

    Show the heading table to the user. If results look wrong, adjust --min-font-ratio and repeat. Also try --toc-pages "N-M" if the user can identify the TOC pages.

  5. Write the recovered PDF (only after user confirms):

    arcane recover-outline "<pdf>" --output "<fixed.pdf>" --depth 2 --min-font-ratio 1.2

  6. Verify injected bookmarks:

    arcane analyze outline "<fixed.pdf>" --depth 2

  7. Fill in template.md and present the summary.

Parameter selection guide

| Observation | Recommendation | |-------------|----------------| | Too many headings detected | Increase --min-font-ratio (try 1.3) | | Too few headings | Decrease --min-font-ratio (try 1.1) or add --toc-pages | | Wrong page numbers | Pass --page-one N with the offset value from step 3 | | Section headings missing | Use --depth 2 | | Confident results needed fast | Add --toc-pages "N-M" for fuzzy-match boost (+0.20 confidence) |

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