IT revolution has changed our life forever. Computers entered all spheres of social and business life. These days, it is impossible to imagine a modern office or a house without computers. It technologies are everywhere. But as any phenomenon, IT progress has its advantages and drawbacks. Sure, there are more pros than cons here. At the same time, users faced a very serious problem with the growth of information volumes. If 20 years ago most documents were stored in paper form, now all docs are saved in hard drives. If before we could lose a document in the office desk, now we lose files in computers. It is a big question where it is easier to find missing documents: in the office desk or in your local drive.
Nowadays, it is very difficult to find missing files without use of a special file search engines. Manual search has proved to be extremely ineffective. It takes much time, and no one can guarantee you excellent search results. We are all humans and we make mistakes. Always remember about human factor. Besides, if you do the same manual job every day, you risk getting nuts soon.
PDF Index Assistant will resolve your problems. This file search utility has one key advantage over similar file search programs. PDF Index Assistant first creates search index and then you can perform search process.
Why is creating a search index necessary? Well, this is not necessary in fact, but it is convenient and time saving in case you have to often look for files in certain locations. Imagine that you have a folder where you store pdf files containing valuable information. From time to time you need to find certain files by keywords. PDF Index Assistant will fist create an index. What is a search index? Let’s create a brief manual or how-to guide to PDF Index Assistant.
When you first open the program you need to create a new index (File menu). You will be offered an index wizard which is very convenient to use. In fact, you will be offered to make choices and select locations.
First of all you will have to choose whether or not you want to use dynamic re-indexing. What is it? Dynamic re-indexing allows updating index if the files were changed, modified, deleted or added. Thus, having chosen Update index you will update the folder specified in the index details.
Create index of pdf files to accelerate search
Index of pdf files will make search faster
After that it is necessary to choose short or full index. Full index contains complete text of files. However, short index will reduce search speed. PDF Index Assistant will then offer you portable or full index which differ by paths (relative vs. full).
Then, having specified locations of the root folder and index file (save it to location which you often use), you proceed to creation of index. Please note that this process can take some time, which depends on size of folders you have chosen. When this process is finished you will see statistics which includes information on total number of indexed files, files in archives, number of keywords etc.
Now you are ready to open index file (*.fsi extension). When you clock on it, you will automatically run PDF Index Assistant, but thing will happen. The program will not start search without your command. First, you need to enter keywords. Having done that, please press search. Again, this may take some time and this depends on the number of files in the index.
And finally, the interesting part begins. PDF Index Assistant lists search results in the bottom box. These will be *.txt and *.pdf files that contain keywords you have entered. You will be able to see the path to the files, its size, type (extension), date it was modified, relevance and hits.
But the most interesting is about to come. Using PDF Index Assistant you can preview files. The program may find a dozen of files that fit into specified search criteria. By clocking on a file in the results list you can preview it, i.e. look through abstracts containing keywords. This will save you much time, as you do not have to manually open all the files to see if this is the one you have been looking for.
PDF Index Assistant has another two features that can considerably narrow search results. However, these features are applicable if you possess such information on the missing files as their size and date they were created/modified/accessed. Let’s talk about search by date and size in detail.
If you know approximate size of the missing file then choose Size tab where you can select one of the following options: less than, equal to and more than. Values are entered either in KB or MB. So, you are able to look for files larger than 2 MB. Such an option will surely narrow search results and save your time.
In case you posses information on the date missing files were created, modified or even accessed this can help you eliminate unnecessary files in the search results list. Here you have two options: look for files created, modified or accessed during the last days, weeks, months etc., and search for files that were created, modified or accessed between a certain period of time. Moreover, you can even set a certain time span (for instance, between 9 and 10 AM). When used smartly the above two options will help you find exactly the files you have been missing. Moreover, you will need little time to do that.
PDF Index Assistant is a great solution for people who work with huge amounts of information, and most of the files they have to process are in pdf format. These are editors, translators, copywriters, content managers etc. Creating index before search process saves much time, as the program will already have spotted the files it will open to find specified keywords. This will be also a good program for people who need to look for files in the same folder every day, week etc.
Search for missing files having previously indexed them
Indexing pdf files will save your time in search
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