Here are 3 Free PDF Index generator software to add index to PDF. These software take a PDF file from you and create the index of unique words along with their occurrence on different pages of PDF. They allow you to use stop words dictionary for excluding some words you don’t want in the word index. Most of these software generate the text file, containing the word index and page numbers on which that word occurs. However, some of these software also let you export the index to other types of files like CSV, Excel, and PDF. Also, in this article, I will demonstrate how you can add the text file to originals PDF to attach the index.
PDF index is usually given at the end of a PDF and it is a lot different from table of contents. The PDF index is used when you want to search something in a PDF. Even PDF reader software uses the index of words to get you the search result. However, these software don’t let you add the index to a PDF file. And for that I will mention other software which will help you do that.
3 Free PDF Index Generator Software to Add Index to PDF:
Index Generator
Index Generator is one of the best free PDF index generator software to add an index to PDF. This software supports multiple languages to build the PDF word index. It supports a variety of formats to export the words list and also it lets you selectively add the words in the final file. It automatically detects the language of the source PDF files and opens the stop word dictionary accordingly. Along with the list of words, it will show the preview of the page from the PDF file where that word occurs. You can choose all the words that you want to add in the index and then export them to a variety of formats.
Index Generator is a powerful software to generate PDF index and later on, you can add that to a target PDF file. Open the software and then create a new PDF project. After that, select a PDF file and it will scan that to identify its language. After language identification, it will start creating the index of words. When it finishes, it will show the list of words in alphabetical order. You can select the words that you want to add in the index and then you can export the entire index as TXT, PDF, RTF, and MS Word file. But I will suggest you use the PDF as an export option.
After you have exported the index as PDF file, you can use some PDF merger software to merge the index with the target PDF file. And using those software, you can attach the index file at the end of the target PDF file. After you have attached the index, you can freely distribute that or do whatever you like. And from now on, whenever you want to attach the index file at the end of PDF, use this approach.
PdfPageLookup
PdfPageLookup is another free software to generate PDF index. This is a simple software to generate PDF index and save that to a text file. And the best part is that it lets you specify some words that you want to exclude from the index file. It uses a custom stopwords dictionary to eliminate some words. And not exactly a text file but this software actually places the index data on Windows clipboard. And to get that data, you can either use clipboard viewer software or you can paste that data into a text file and save it.
This software to generate PDF index is very simple. As soon as you open it, it will immediately ask you to specify a PDF file for which you want to generate the PDF index. After that, it will start processing the PDF file and when it has generated the PDF index, it will throw a dialog box to indicate that it has processed the words from the PDF file. After that, you can paste that data into a text file and save that. That’s it.
Here’s how to add an index to PDF that you have generated in text form.
Step 1: After you have saved the index file in text form, download any text to PDF converter software. And then convert the text file to PDF.
Step 2: When you have the PDF file of the index dictionary, you can merge it with the original PDF file. And you can download a free PDF merger software and attach the index file at the end of the main PDF file. In the end you will have the single PDF file that you wanted to get.
These are the only steps to add index to PDF. And actually, it is very simple to do that. You just have to use some handy free software to get the work done. After you have the final PDF file, you can do whatever you like.
PDFWordIndex
PDFWordIndex is a command line tool to generate the PDF index in an easy way. However, this tool doesn’t ignore the stop words. It indexes all the unique words that it finds in the source PDF file. You just have to execute this tool via Windows command prompt and it will generate a text file, containing the PDF word index. Later on, you can use some other software and add the index that you have generated to the target PDF file.
Using this command tool is very simple. You can grab the stable release of the tool from here and then you can extract it. After that, paste the target PDF file in the same folder for which you want to generate the PDF index. Next, open the command prompt in the same folder where you have extracted the ZIP file. After that, run the software like this.
Above you can see a test output from a test file. It will create a text file in the same folder. And in the text file, it will save the index of words with the page number on which they occur. Now, after getting the TXT file, you can convert that to PDF and then merge with the final file using any PDF merger software. In short, use the approach that I have explained for the above software.
Final Thoughts
These are the best free PDF index generator software that I have listed and they are perfectly able to generate the PDF index. You just have to specify a target PDF file and get the list of unique words along with the page number on which they occur. If you often deal with the PDF files and to generate the index, then this list of free software will come in handy. Personally, I really like Index Generator software in my list for generating PDF index. However, you can use other two as well.
