Rebuilding an index

If you modify a PDF document collection for which you’ve created an index by removing or adding files to the collection, you must rebuild the index in order to have Acrobat search its entire contents. Before you rebuild an index for a collection from which you have removed some PDF files, you need to purge the index. When you do this, Acrobat actually removes the files no longer part of the collection from the index, rather than just marking them as invalid. Purging them from the index streamlines it considerably and makes searching it as fast as possible.
To purge and then rebuild an index, follow these steps:

1. Choose Advanced➪Catalog; in the Catalog dialog box that appears, click the Open Index button.
The Open Index File dialog box appears.

2. Select the folder that contains the PDF document collection and the index file, and then click the index file icon (the one with the .pdx file extension in Windows) before you click the Open button.
The Open Index File dialog box closes, and the Index Definition dialog box appears.

3. Click the Purge button at the bottom of the Index Definition dialog box.
Acrobat responds by opening the Catalog dialog box that displays the status of your index purge operation with a progress bar. When the purge operation is finished, you are informed of that fact in the list box below the progress bar.

4. To rebuild the purged index, click the Open Index button again, click the index file icon, and then click the Open button.
Once again, the Open Index File dialog box closes, and the Index Definition dialog box appears.

5. Click the Rebuild button to rebuild the index using only the PDF files left after the purge.

6. After Acrobat finishes rebuilding the index, click the Close button to close the Catalog dialog box.

After you’ve finished purging and rebuilding an index, you can then immediately start using it in the searches you perform on the PDF document collection. Although not specifically noted in the preceding steps, keep in mind that prior to clicking the Rebuild button, you can click the Options button to modify stop words or change the other number and document element search options, as discussed earlier in this chapter in the section, “Building an index for your collection.”
If you use only one particular index that you built when searching a particular PDF document, you can associate the index file with the PDF file. That way, Acrobat automatically mounts the index so you’re ready to search the document with it every time you open the PDF document in Acrobat. To do this, choose File➪Document Properties and click Advanced in the list box to display the Advanced Document Properties options. In the PDF Setting area, click the Browse button to locate and select the index file you want to associate with the current PDF document. Click Open to select the index file and return to the Document Preferences dialog box. The directory path for the index file now appears in the Search Index text box. Click OK to close the Document Preferences dialog box.