Attaching Multiple Indexes

[Julian_Horn@adobeforums.com]

To get around problems (.did too big etc.) we are having indexing a fairly large collection of documents and to make searching more sophisticated, we have built 7 indexes based on the file content and subject.

The indexes build OK now but I don't seem to be able to associate more than one index per to a master document from which users will be able to search the collection.

I want to be able to attach all 7 indexes automatically (I know we can attch them manually but I want it to be a simpler process for users), but everything I have tried so far does not work - does anyone have any ideas?

Using Acrobat 5.05, Win XP Pro on a Pentium 2.4GHz Dell, 512MB Ram, >20Gb free on HD.

Thanks in advance . . .

[Fr._Watson@adobeforums.com]

AA5 can't (on its own; there is maybe a javascript or other suchlike solution) associate multiple indices with a master document. I believe that you can in AA6 (I can't remember if it is both "Standard" and "Pro" or just "Pro"), but for the life of me I cannot find it this morning. I don't myself recommend buying AA6 just for this ability (it also has the ability to index multiple drives) because the search indices created by AA6 (which has a different provider for the search engine than did AA5 & prior) are NOT useable by older versions of Acrobat - among other reasons.

There might be plug-ins out there as well to allow association of multiple indices. Where I work we have multiple indices as well, but it is not very important for us to be able to have the multiple index association, at least at this time. (Certainly not important enough to accept the loss of backwards compatibility, since we provide PDF's to clients.)

[Ian_Mellors@adobeforums.com]

yep, you'll need to add javascript to add multimple indexes into a document.

This is an extract from the javascript reference;

// Adds the standard help index for Acrobat to the index list:
search.addIndex("/c/program files/adobe/acrobat 5.0/help/exchhelp.pdx", true);

Add something like the above to the Page Open action of your master document ("Document", "Set Page Action", highlight 'Page Open', click 'Add', Select 'Javascript', hit 'Edit' ....)

Point of note, it does not allow you to search ALL indexes at once, you have to select which index you need, then search ....

[Julian_Horn@adobeforums.com]

Thank you both for the comments. Javascript works and has solved the problem.

Fr. Watson - I purchased Acrobat 6 as an upgrade (Std version) installed it, used it for a day, uninstalled it and threw it away. What a joke! I shan't be giving any more money to Adobe in future. I also dumped Golive too.

I want - no, need - reliable software. Adobe just don't cut it any more. Their support is rubbish, esp if you are in the UK, and their history of bug fixing is laughable. They seem to ignore bugs and move on to the next version upgrade (Version Upgrade and Adobe - isn't that an oxymoron?) :-)

I wish I could invoice them or Mr Gates for the hours spent trying to get their respective software to work in a stable way.