We have hundreds of scanned [reports] and every time someone wants a KPI example it becomes a day-long hunt. I want a …
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.
A full-text index is like a super-fast lookup table for all the words in your PDF files. It matters because without it, your computer has to read every single word in every single file each time you search. With an index, it just looks up the word in the index, which is much quicker, especially for a large collection of documents. This saves a lot of time and makes finding information easier.
For hundreds of old PMO reports, the best way to search efficiently is to use the 'Catalog' feature in Acrobat Pro. This will build a single search index for all your reports. After the index is made, you can search that index once, and it will quickly find information across all your reports, including text, comments, and other details.
| Feature | Regular PDF Search | Catalog Index Search |
|---|---|---|
| Speed | Searches one file at a time, can be slow for many files. | Very fast across many files because it uses a pre-built index. |
| Coverage | Mainly body text, layers, form fields, signatures. | Covers body text, comments, bookmarks, tags, metadata, and attachments. |
| Setup | No special setup needed, just open and search. | Requires one-time setup to build the index (Catalog) in Acrobat Pro. |
You should use Catalog to index your PDF collection because it makes searching much faster and more complete. When you search each file individually, it takes a lot of time, especially for large collections. An index searches across all files at once. Also, the index covers more than just the main text; it includes comments, bookmarks, and even attached files, so you are more likely to find all relevant information.