Megabit Macros

Macros for indexers who work in Windows®

  • Do you do a lot of copying from PDFs when you index? Would you like to do it many times faster?

  • Would you like to minimize the "hand" work and maximize the "brain" work of indexing?

  • Would you like to double or triple your data entry speed in your indexing program?

  • Do you frequently create name indexes?

  • If your answer to any of these questions is yes, then you are in the right place... Welcome!

Megabit Macros are third-party macros for indexers who work in Windows, to speed up copying text from Adobe PDF files into an indexing program, or into a plain-text file that you can import into an indexing program.

How do the macros work?

With your PDF open in Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat, you select the text you want to copy, run the macro by pressing a keyboard shortcut, and in a few seconds, the macro copies the currently selected text from Adobe Reader or Acrobat, switches into your indexing or wordprocessing program, removes extraneous items in the copied text, pastes in the cleaned-up copied text, and then automatically returns you into your Adobe program. Some macros will stop after the macro pastes in your text, wait until you've added a page number or a subentry or an author name, and continue when you press a certain key.

The macros work with the SKY Index program, the Cindex program, or with Microsoft WordPad (which can save as plain text, to create an importable file).

What's so good about that?

You'll save time and stress on your hands and wrists. If you're indexing a PDF with a lot of complex terminology, foreign terms, proper names, or just a large number of words of any kind, this will save you a lot of typing and/or clicking. If you were planning to copy your terms by hand from the PDF, it will increase the speed of the copying process at least six times because you'll be pressing one keyboard shortcut instead of doing at least six clicks, double-clicks, or keypresses:

  • Copying manually:
    1. Select desired word(s) in your PDF (double-click, or click and drag, or use Ctrl+Shift+arrow keys to select text).
    2. Copy word (press Ctrl+C, or double-click, or choose Edit, Copy from the menu).
    3. Switch over into indexing program (press Alt+Tab or click over).
    4. Paste copied term in (press Ctrl+V or use menus in your indexing program).
    5. ... and even more keystrokes if you need to edit the copied text in your indexing program...
    6. Complete the entry (press Enter or other key depending on program).
    7. Switch back into Adobe Reader or Acrobat (press Alt+Tab or click over).
    8. Unselect word (press Escape key or click elsewhere).

  • Copying with Megabit Macros:
    1. Select desired word(s) in your PDF.
    2. Press one keyboard shortcut! In a few seconds, your selection is copied, and you're back
      in your PDF, ready to select the next term.
You will also save time because of other things the macros do to clean up the text before pasting it in...

  • Two of the macros are specifically for copying names, and they automatically invert the last name, or treat the last two words as the last name, before they place the name into the receiving file (so Mary Ann Dewey becomes "Dewey, Mary Ann", or "Jean-Paul van Gogh" becomes "van Gogh, Jean Paul"), depending on which macro you choose).

  • If there was a colon, semicolon, comma, period, exclamation point, or question mark at the end of the copied text, the macros eliminate it. If the word had parentheses around it, the macros eliminate them. Thus you don't have to select with absolute accuracy.

  • They eliminate the "/nl" codes that appear when you copy text of more than one line out of columns in a PDF. They also eliminate any double spaces, or spaces at the beginning or end of your selection.

  • Some of the macros enter your copied word into the sub or main field as appropriate and then stop for you to add another word/words as the main entry or the subentry, and return you to your PDF when you press Enter. You decide which macro to invoke based on whether you want the copied word to be the subentry or the main entry.

  • One macro will italicize what it pastes in, add parentheses, and wait for you to enter an author's name between the parentheses, then continue when you press a key (Tab or Enter depending on which program you're using). Similarly, another macro adds quotes around what it pastes in, adds parentheses, and waits for you to enter an author's name between the parentheses, then continues when you press a key (Tab or Enter depending on which program you're using). And another similar macro just adds parentheses and wait for you to enter text, but does not add quotes or italicize the text.

  • One macro just adds an "s" to the end of the copied word before pasting it in.

  • If you are working with SKY or Cindex, you can use their features to automatically increment the page number and enter it for you as entries are made. The first time you copy an entry in, you can use a macro that stops to ask you for the page number after it copies in your text. You can use that macro again whenever you want to change the page number for the next set of entries.

  • One macro copies in your entry, then creates a new entry and remains in your indexing program so that you can proceed to edit the second copy of the entry with your SKY or Cindex methods.

  • Although WordPad cannot "remember" the page number as SKY and Cindex can, the macros for WordPad can retain it. If you set the page number first, WordPad will then re-enter that page number for you when you use the rest of the macros, until you run the macro to change the page number again.

  • The macros remove any font formatting from entries copied into Cindex so that the entries appear in the default font you are using in Cindex.

  • And yes, entries copied into your file using these macros are saved in your AutoComplete list if you have that feature on at the time.

Could I accomplish the same thing with SKY or Cindex macros?

No, because a SKY macro will only work within SKY, and a Cindex macro will only work within Cindex. It would not be able to take you back and forth between your indexing program and another application. Macro Express, the program in which my macros are written, is an independent program that uses standard Windows functions. (You could have SKY or Cindex macros that do certain things within SKY or Cindex, like inverting a name, but not that perform the entire operation of copying the text in the Adobe program, switching into the indexing program, cleaning up the text, pasting it in, and returning to the PDF in one swoop.)

I can't quite picture how this works...

This is what your screen might look like before you used the macro. Your focus is in your PDF, the text you want to copy is highlighted, and SKY is ready and waiting:

Now you press Ctrl+F7, the keyboard shortcut for copying and inverting a name with one last name... and a couple of seconds later, your screen looks like this: Your text has been copied into SKY, you are ready to select the next text to copy in your Adobe program, and SKY is ready to receive your next entry:

Will the keyboard shortcuts interfere with my existing shortcuts in SKY or Cindex?

Not at all. The keyboard shortcuts for Macro Express will not affect or interfere with whatever shortcuts you use in your indexing program. The macros can only be started from within Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat.

Does every indexer need this?

NO. If you only copy from PDF files occasionally, it's probably not worth it. If you spend a lot of time copying from PDF files, you'll probably find it quite time-saving. It's especially useful with proper names.

What's involved?

First I would send you my macro file. Then you would download Macro Express, an independent macro utility program, which is shareware; it's free to try for 30 days and costs $40 to purchase after the trial period. You can download the program from the Macro Express web site and I'll give you specific instructions for installing it. (Do not download "Macro Express Pro.") Then you'll open my macro file in Macro Express (just like opening a file in any other application).

Before you start using the macros, you'll make a few changes to the settings in the Macro Express program, and then you won't need to do any more setup with Macro Express; all you have to do is have the program running when you want to use the macros. Yes, it takes a little bit of work to get it all set up, but you're going to save so much time in the long run that the setup time will end up seeming like nothing by comparison. In addition to my macro file, I will send you a practice sheet, a chart of the macros and shortcuts, and a PDF of the instructions (which are also online).

I have not made my macro files time-limited because it's too complicated to do that — and I don't want my macros to need to do anything with your Windows Registry! So I'm trusting that if you end up registering Macro Express and using the macros regularly, you will also purchase the macros — but it's totally an honor system. For now, I'm asking an introductory price of $45. My only requirements are that you agree not to give away or sell copies of my macro file to others, reverse-engineer it, or use the Megabit Macros name.

Couldn't I write these macros myself?

Absolutely, if you want to spend the time learning how!! That's totally up to you. But you're an indexer. You want to index, not to program — right?

These macros are ready to free you up to concentrate on the real work of indexing, the analytical process that no computer can do for you. (You could probably accomplish the same thing using either of two other programs. QuicKeys is similar to Macro Express but costs a bit more, around $60. Autohotkey is free but has no interface to help you write the macros; you're just looking at an empty text file and have to learn all the commands from scratch and type them all in yourself, so it requires a significant investment of time — much more than $60 worth unless you're already a programmer.)

Sounds great, but I don't use Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat. I use some other program.

NEW: I am working on a version that works with PDF-XChangeViewer (a free program).

What if I use Macrex?

I haven't tried to make this work with Macrex. You can use the macros that copy into WordPad and then import a tab-delimited file into Macrex. WordPad is a light-duty wordprocessing program that is part of the Windows accessory programs, so it's on every Windows computer. I cannot advise on any specific Macrex requirements, only on creating a tab-delimited plain text file. (If you are a very experienced and patient Macrex user who wants to feed me information about data entry in Macrex v.8 so I can try to create a version for it, let me know.)

What are the system requirements?

They're simple — you just need a Windows computer powerful enough to run your Adobe program and your indexing program at the same time. If you can already do that, you shouldn't have a problem adding Macro Express. The system requirements for Macro Express are comparatively low.

My macros were originally created in Windows XP SP2, using Macro Express version 3.7 and Adobe Acrobat Professional 8. They have been used on systems running

  • Windows XP SP2 and SP3
  • Adobe Reader versions 6, 7, 8, and 9
  • Adobe Acrobat Professional versions 8 and 9
  • SKY Index version 6 (Professional & Student editions) and SKY Index version 7 (Professional edition)
  • Cindex 1.5 and 2.0 for Windows (Standard editions>
  • Macro Express 3.8
  • and the version of WordPad (5.1) in Windows XP
They have not been tested in Windows Vista or Windows 7 yet. Of course, they will not work in any non-Windows operating system since Macro Express is a Windows-only program.

How do I get the macros, or ask you a question about them?

Email me: Send Message. The macros currently exist in three separate files: for SKY, for Cindex, and for WordPad. I'll send you whichever file you need, plus instructions, and a practice sheet and cheat sheet.

Note: The keyboard shortcuts have been set up so that they will not interfere with the default shortcuts in Adobe Acrobat Professional. However, since preferences for specific keyboard shortcuts are individual, I can customize the keyboard shortcuts for you if you like. All three files use the same keyboard shortcuts, since you can only have one macro file running at a time (and I didn't want to have to remember different sets of shortcuts!). Also, there's a menu of the macros that you can invoke by pressing Ctrl+M in your PDF; you can initiate a macro from the menu either by pressing a hot key or clicking on the macro name.

Will these macros eliminate every possible thing in the copied text that might need editing?

No; that's not always possible. Depending on how the PDF was originally created, there may be extra spaces where there was a ligature (so you'd get "shi eld" instead of "shield" or "ses sion" instead of "session"). The name-inversion macros are able to eliminate these because such spaces would have lowercase letters on both sides, but for general copying, the macro cannot "know" whether the extra space is correct. Also, you may have to delete a superfluous space after a hyphen occasionally. (See the next question for more on irregularities in PDF files.) But even with looking through the entries that you've copied to find these problems, you're still saving a great deal of time compared to copying by hand. (If you find something consistent that the macros might be able to eliminate, please let me know.)

Isn't there a program that will index PDFs automatically or
create a concordance from a PDF?

If you're an experienced indexer, you know this already, but as far as I and the indexers I know have been able to find out, there is no program to accomplish indexing in Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader automatically.

  • There are concordance programs used by linguists, but they do not work on PDF files.
  • There are embedded indexing capabilities in programs from which PDF files are often created (Microsoft Word, FrameMaker, InDesign), but that doesn't help us.
  • Adobe Acrobat has a feature called indexing, but it's not the kind of indexing we're talking about; it just marks terms internally (and invisibly) in order to speed up searches.
There are several programs that claim to be able to create an index or concordance from a PDF, but so far I haven't heard that any of them produce an actual index that is up to the standards of a professional indexer (and some of them don't work in Adobe Reader anyway, only in the more expensive Standard and Professional versions of Adobe Acrobat). Even if such a program can create a concordance, there are so many situations in which text in a PDF does not appear in a consistently searchable form that, as far as I know, such a program could not be relied on to deal with all instances. For example, searches may not be able to find
  • words created as an image
  • hyphenated words
  • words broken at the end of a line
  • words containing ligatures
  • words that look okay on the screen but appear with extra spaces when copied
  • some fonts and letter combinations
  • some diacritics
As a result, searching a PDF file can be quite frustrating! For more information:

Can you create a custom macro for me?

Tell me what you want to do and what the steps are that you would normally take to achieve the task, and I'll give it a whirl if it looks possible. Some of the existing macros originated as user suggestions.

Other Macros for Indexers

For working with SKY Index:

For working with Cindex:

For working with Macrex:

For working with Microsoft Word's embedded indexing codes:
Copyright 2009 Margaret Berson

How did you come up with this?

Here's the story of how these macros came to be: A colleague of mine who is an indexer took on a large project involving thousands of pages with many words in a variety of languages, including many proper names and place names. She explained to me that it was going to be prohibitively time-consuming to type all these diacritics into her indexing program (SKY). She would have to copy the terms from an Adobe PDF file either into her indexing program or into a text file from which she could then import the text into the indexing program.

I'm not a programmer, but I've written macros in seven different applications, each with a different macro "language," and I started thinking that it must be possible to speed up what she was doing with a macro. But a SKY macro couldn't do it — it would have to be done with a third-party macro program. I had heard of one called Macro Express. I downloaded it and I was able to create macros to speed up the process of copying a word or words from Adobe Reader into WordPad. (We tried it with Microsoft Word at first, but ran into memory problems that didn't occur with WordPad.) Eventually we decided to see if we could do the same thing but have the macro copy directly into SKY. I was able to modify the macros to work with SKY instead of WordPad.

Copyright and Trademark Notices

Programs mentioned on this page:
  • Macro Express®, the Windows® Automation Tool, is a registered trademark of Insight Software Solutions.

  • Adobe Reader® and Adobe Acrobat® are registered trademarks of Adobe Systems, Inc.

  • SKY Index™ is a trademark of SKY Software.

  • Cindex for Windows™ is a trademark of Indexing Research.

  • Macrex is a product of Macrex Indexing Services.

  • Microsoft® is a registered trademark of Microsoft® Corporation.
  • Microsoft® Windows® is a registered trademark of Microsoft® Corporation.

  • PDF-XChange Viewer is a product of Tracker Software.

    Any other trademarks mentioned on this page are the property of their respective owners.

Megabit Macros and this document are copyright 2009 by Margaret Berson. All rights reserved.

Acknowledgements

Images on this page other than those I created are modified from clip art purchased from Dover Publications and Art Explosion (Nova Development), or clip art from my licensed copy of Microsoft Office 2003 Small Business Edition, plus one image from a free template available at createafreewebsite.net.

Thanks to the staff and support forum of Insight Software Solutions. Special thanks to Cher Paul, Rusty Gesner, and the late Jean-Louis Brindamour for inspiration and encouragement.

~~~~ Report Broken Links ~~~~ Have a Question? ~~~~ Back to Home Page ~~~~ Recommended Links