Going to a page and using page labels in PDF by Zaweba

Long documents rarely number their pages the simple way. A book starts with a few roman numeral pages before page 1, a technical manual might number its appendices A-1, A-2 and so on, and the page printed in the corner seldom matches the page count your viewer shows. PDF by Zaweba handles this with a go to page command that understands both kinds of number, plus a pair of back and forward keys for retracing your steps.

Jumping to a page

Press Ctrl+G and type where you want to go. The page box accepts a plain number, which counts from the very first page of the file, or a page label, which is the name the document itself gives to a page. So in a book whose introduction is numbered i, ii and iii, you can type ii and land on the second page of the introduction, and type 1 to reach the page printed as 1 at the start of chapter one.

Labels such as A-1 work in the same way. If someone tells you the answer is on page C-4 of a manual, you don't need to work out how many pages come before appendix C. Type the label and you are there.

The labels also show in the status bar and under the page thumbnails. That is useful when you are flicking through and want to quote a page reference to someone else, because the label you see is the one printed on the page, not a count they would have to translate.

Retracing your steps

Following links and bookmarks is quick, but it can leave you lost. You click a cross reference on page 12, read a table on page 230, and now want to go back to where you were. Previous view, on Alt+Left, takes you back to the place you jumped from. Next view, on Alt+Right, goes forward again. They work much like the back and forward buttons in a web browser, which makes a heavily linked document far easier to read.

This is especially handy with contents pages and indexes. Click an index entry, check the page, press Alt+Left and you are back in the index ready for the next one, without scrolling and hunting.

When the label and the number disagree

Sometimes typing a number takes you somewhere unexpected. That is usually because the document has labels and you have typed a number that is also a label. Check the status bar: it shows the label of the page you are on, so you can see whether you have reached the printed page 10 or the tenth page of the file. If a document has no labels at all, the two are the same and there is nothing to think about.

It also helps to know that labels come from the PDF, not from the app. If a file was made without them, the app has nothing to show, and the plain page count is what you get. That is not a fault, just a document that was exported simply.

Fitting it into how you read

Go to page sits alongside the other ways round a long file in PDF by Zaweba: thumbnails for a visual scan, the bookmarks panel for the document's own outline, and search for finding words. A good rhythm is to use bookmarks or search to find the right area, then Ctrl+G when someone gives you an exact page, and Alt+Left whenever a jump takes you somewhere you only meant to glance at.

For meetings, where people call out page references from a printed copy, labels are the feature that saves time. Everyone is reading the same printed page numbers, and you can match them in a couple of key presses instead of counting.

Once Ctrl+G and Alt+Left are in your fingers, a five hundred page document stops feeling like a scroll and starts behaving more like a book you can open at the right place.