To the right of the Index Description field is a button labeled Options. Click this button and the Options dialog box appears, allowing you to choose from a number of different attributes for your index file.

Some of these options are similar to the Preference settings for Acrobat Catalog you made in the Preferences dialog box. Any edits you make here supersede Preference settings.

Do Not Include Numbers

The first item in the Options dialog box is a check box for excluding numbers. By selecting the Do not include numbers option, you can reduce the file size, especially if data containing many numbers are part of the PDF file(s) to be indexed. Keep in mind, however, that if numbers are excluded, Search won’t find numeric values.

Add IDs to Adobe v1.0 files

Because Acrobat is now in version 8.0, finding old PDF 1.0 files that need to be updated with IDs may rarely happen. If you do have legacy files saved as PDF 1.0 format, it would be best to batch process the older PDFs by saving them out of Acrobat 8.0. As software changes, many previous formats may not be supported with recent updates.

For better performance, update older documents to newer file formats. If you have legacy files that haven’t been updated and you want to include them in your search index, check the box. If you’re not certain whether the PDFs were created with Acrobat 1.0 compatibility, check it anyway just to be safe.

Do Not Warn for Changed Documents when Searching

If you create an index file, then return to the index in Acrobat Catalog and perform some maintenance functions, save the index, and start searching the index, Acrobat notifies you in a dialog box that changes have been made and asks whether you want to proceed. To sidestep the opening of the warning dialog box, check the Do not warn for changed documents when searching option.

Custom Properties

The Custom Properties button opens the Custom Properties dialog box, as shown in Figure 6.24. Custom Properties are used when customizing Acrobat with the Acrobat Software Development Kit (SDK). This item is intended for programmers who want to add special features to Acrobat.

To add a Custom Property to be indexed, you should have knowledge in programming and the PDF format. You add Custom Properties to the field box and select the type of property to be indexed from the pulldown menu. You type the property values in the field box, identify the type, and click the Add button. The property is then listed in the window below the Custom Property field box.

The types available from the pull-down menu are as follows:

• String. This is any text string. If numbers are included with this option they are treated as text.
• Integer. The integer field can accept values between 0 and 65,535.
• Date. This is a date value.

Support for programmers writing extensions and plug-ins, and working with the SDK is provided by Adobe Systems. Developers who want to use the support program need to become a member of the Adobe Solutions Network (ASN) Developer Program. See ASN and SDK for more information.

XMP Fields

Click XMP Fields and another dialog box opens in which you add to a list of XMP fields. The dialog box is virtually identical to the Stop Words dialog box. Type a name in the field box and click the Add button. All new XMP fields are added to the list window.

Stop Words

To optimize an index file that produces faster search results, you can add stop words. You may have words, such as the, a, an, of, and so on that would typically not be used in a search. You can choose to exclude such words by typing the word in the Word field box and clicking the Add button in the Stop Words dialog box.

Click Stop Words in the Options dialog box to open the Stop Words dialog box. To eliminate a word after it has been added, select the word and click the Remove button. Keep in mind that every time you add a word, you are actually adding it to a list of words to be excluded.

You can create an elaborate list of stop words and may want to apply the list to several index files, but Acrobat (as of this writing) does not include an ability to import or swap a list of words to be excluded from an index file. For a workaround, you can open any existing Index Definition field and change all attributes except the stop words.

Add a new index title, a new index description, and select a new directory for indexing. Save the definition to a new filename and click the Build button. A new index is built using the stop words created in another index. In workgroups you can save an index definition file without adding directories and use it as a template so all index files have consistent settings for the stop words.

Structure Tags

If you have a tagged PDF you can search document tags when the tags are included in the search index. Click Structure Tags in the Options dialog box to open the Tags dialog box. Tagged PDFs with a tagged root and elements can have any item in the tagged logical tree marked for searching.

To observe the tags in a PDF file, open the Tags palette and expand the tree. All the tags nest like a Bookmark list. When you want to mark tags for searching, type the tag name in the Tags dialog box and click the Add button. You remove tags from the list window by selecting a tag and clicking the Remove button.