Adobe Reader 8

Search index files of cataloged PDFs

A full-text index is created when someone uses Acrobat to define a catalog of PDFs. You can search that index for the words you want to find rather than running a full-text search of each individual PDF in the catalog. An index search produces a results list with links to the occurrences of the indexed documents.

Note: To search a PDF index, you must open Reader as a standalone application, not within your web browser. In Mac OS, indexes created with some older versions of Reader are not compatible with the Reader 8 Search feature and must be updated before you can use Reader 8 to search them.
  1. Open the Search window, type the words you want to find, and then click Use Advanced Search Options (near the bottom of the window).
  2. For Look In, choose Select Index.
  3. In the Index Selection dialog box, select an index, if the one you want to search is available, or click Add and then locate and select the index to be searched, and click Open. Repeat as needed until all the indexes you want to search are selected.
    Note: You can read file data about a selected index by clicking Info, and you can exclude indexes from the search either by selecting them and choosing Remove or by clearing the check box for that index.
  4. Click OK to close the Index Selection dialog box, and then choose Currently Selected Indexes on the Look In pop-up menu.
  5. Proceed with your search as usual, selecting other options you want to apply, and clicking Search.
    Note: Selecting the Match Whole Word Only option when searching indexes significantly reduces the time taken to return results.