One of the options available when saving a document as a PDF is to create PDF bookmarks using headings in the document. Those bookmarks will then be accessible in the PDF's bookmarks pane.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

What I tried as well (because I need to deliver a PDF to my publisher) is to create a PDF which has all images fully embedded and uncompressed, so I get maximum print quality.

The word file is about 200 MB. When saving as PDF I have chosen 'standard (publishing online and printing' and under tools -> compress pictures, I have chosen 'use document resolution' and unchecked 'delete cropped areas of pictures'. Nevertheless, the created PDF is only about 15 MB.

I found the bookmark option, but cannot find how to set the initial view for the created pdf to display the bookmarks by default. Also, do you know if/how to embed fonts when saving as PDF?

You can't force that - it depends on how the user has configured Acrobat.Whether a given font can be embedded depends on the font license. See: https://support.office.com/en-us/art...8-165e9c37e985. That said, the option to embed fonts in the document and, hence I would expect, the PDF can be found under File|Options|Save.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]