Train the clinic on a standard file-naming, storage, and retention practice—create a reusable PDF guide and save the t…
Place all PDFs you want to include in the search index into a single folder on your computer.
Open Adobe Acrobat Pro.
Go to the Tools view and select Catalog.
In the Catalog panel, click New Index.
In the Index Definition dialog, click Add Folder and select the folder containing your PDFs.
Optionally, adjust the advanced options for the index (such as custom stop words or include/exclude subfolders) as needed.
Click Build to start creating the index.
Choose a location and filename for your .pdx index file and click Save.
Wait for the indexing process to complete, then click Close when finished.
Best practiceFor best performance, keep your PDF collection and the .pdx index file together in the same folder so users can easily search across all documents.
After building the index, use the Advanced Search feature and select 'Use Index' to search across all indexed PDFs at once.
This runs in the Acrobat app - there is no separate API for this task.
An Adobe Acrobat Catalog is a special index file, often a .pdx file, that Acrobat Pro creates for a group of PDFs. It's important because it records every word and its location across all those documents. This means when you search, Acrobat doesn't have to open and read each PDF one by one. Instead, it quickly checks the Catalog, making searches much faster and more complete, especially for large collections of files.
Yes, you should still use a Search Index, but you will need to update it regularly. If you add new PDFs, remove old ones, or change the content within existing PDFs, the Catalog index will become outdated. You'll need to rebuild or update the index using the 'Catalog' feature in Acrobat Pro to ensure your searches always find the most current information. This ensures accuracy and continued fast searching.
| Feature | Regular Search | Search with Index (Catalog) |
|---|---|---|
| Speed | Slow for many files | Very fast for many files |
| Coverage | Main text, layers, forms | Covers comments, bookmarks, tags, metadata, attachments, and main text |
| Setup | No setup needed | Requires one-time index creation |
You should use an Adobe Acrobat Search Index because it offers a much deeper and faster search specifically for PDF content. While your operating system can find files by name or some basic text, Acrobat's Catalog index goes inside the PDFs. It covers not just the visible text but also comments, bookmarks, tags, metadata, and even attachments within the PDF. This gives you a more complete and accurate search result for complex PDF documents, far beyond what a general operating system search can provide.