Megabit Macros: Macros for Indexers

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?
  • Do you frequently create extensive name indexes?
  • Would you like to increase your data entry speed in your indexing program?
  • Would you like to minimize the "hand" work and maximize the "brain" work of indexing?
If your answer to any of these questions is yes, then you are in the right place!

User Recommendations

Megabit Macros are a phenomenal tool for indexers. I am able to work faster and with less strain on my wrists by using these macros to invert names, format titles of works, and change page ranges. The learning curve is short and the support is incredible. Margaret even created macros specific to my needs!
— Rachel Dadusc, www.dadusc.com, indexer of scholarly, academic, and trade books

Even though I'm a fast typist, Megabit Macros sped up the process for a names index I recently had to create from strings of names in bibliographic material. I was able to enter over 100 more names per hour with the macros than I normally would if I had typed them one by one. They also saved me the time and effort I would ordinarily spend proofreading the accuracy of the spelling of the names. I use them now in all of my indexing projects.
— Mary Harper, Access Points Indexing, www.accesspointsindexing.com

A time saver? Yes. These macros are also an ergonomic boon for any indexer with a history of wrist problems.
— Judi Gibbs, www.writeguru.com, indexer of scholarly, technical, and trade books

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. They were created in an independent program called Macro Express.

How do the macros work?

First you install the trial version of the third-party program, Macro Express, and load my macro library file into it. Then, with your PDF open in Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat, and your indexing program waiting, you select the text you want to copy, press a keyboard shortcut to run the macro, and in a few seconds, the macro
  • copies the currently selected text from Adobe Reader or Acrobat
  • removes extraneous items in the copied text
  • switches into your indexing program
  • pastes in the cleaned-up copied text
  • inverts names if you're copying a name
  • automatically returns you into your Adobe program
Yes, you read that right—it does all of that in a few seconds. Some macros 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, or the Cindex program, and a Macrex version has been tested but is not being distributed due to lack of interest.

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!
You will also save time because of the clean-up the macros do to the text before pasting it in...

  • Delete paragraph returns and superfluous spaces: The macros 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 within the selection, and/or spaces at the beginning or end of your selection.

  • Delete surrounding punctuation: The macros eliminate a colon, semicolon, comma, period, exclamation point, or question mark at the end of the copied text. Thus you don't have to select with pinpoint accuracy.

Beyond the cleanup, this is what the macros can do, in addition to copying:

  • Remove Font Formatting: The macros remove any font formatting from copied entries so that the entries appear in the default font you are using in SKY or Cindex. (I can disable this if it's not what you want.)

  • Invert Names: Several macros for copying names 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).

  • Format Titles: 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 (which keys depends 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 the appropriate key. And another similar macro just adds parentheses and wait for you to enter text, but does not add quotes or italicize the text.

  • Wait for Subentry: 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 the appropriate to end the macro. You decide which macro to invoke based on whether you want the copied word to be the subentry or the main entry.

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

  • Change Page Numbers: You can use your indexing program's 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.

  • Automatically Create Copy of New Entry: 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.

  • Name-Copying/Splitting Macros : I've created macros to copy lists of author names from bibliographic formats and automatically punctuate them and enter them as individual entries (and there are some that just format the list so that the SKY version 7 Split command can be used). Here's a list of bibliographic format patterns for which this has been done. I'm not attempting to do every possible pattern, only the ones people have asked me for.

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

No, because a SKY macro will only work within SKY, and a Cindex macro will only work within Cindex, and a Macrex macro will only work within Macrex. It would not be able to take you back and forth between your indexing program and another application and perform actions within the other application. Macro Express, the program in which my macros are written, is an independent program that uses standard Windows functions. (You could easily have SKY or Cindex or Macrex macros that do certain things, 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 use the macro. Your focus is in your PDF on the left side of the screen, the text you want to copy is highlighted, and SKY is ready and waiting on the right side of your screen:

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

But I don't use the Adobe software. I use some other program.

The only other free program that seems to work well with the macros is PDF-XChange Viewer from Tracker Software, for which I made a SKY version. I've tried a couple of other free programs but they didn't work as well. This version can automatically highlight the text you've copied in the PDF after copying it. But there's one disadvantage to PDF-XChange Viewer: you must select the text by mouse. You can't select the text by using standards Windows keyboard shortcuts, as you can in the Adobe products. Tracker Software is planning to add that feature in the future, however. I will probably discontinue this version since only one person has expressed an interest.

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.

What about page numbers?

The macros were initially designed to work with the indexing software features that automatically repeat the page number, but there are three macros in which you can change the page number during the macro; one for plain copying and two for the name-inverting macros. It has come to my attention that a lot of indexers don't use the auto-repeat feature for the page numbers. At this point, I'm waiting for more feedback before I decide whether to make versions of all the macros that will stop for the page number, so if you are in the non-repeat camp, please let me know.

Does every indexer need this?

NO. If you only copy from PDF files occasionally, it's probably not worth it. Additionally, there are some situations where you would be able to use column selection to copy chunks of text at a time from a PDF, which might end up being faster depending on the specific situation. If you spend a lot of time copying from PDF files, you'll find it time-saving. It's especially useful with proper names or complex vocabulary.

What if I use Macrex?

I have created a version of the macros using the demo of Macrex version 8, and it has been beta-tested. However, it is not being distributed due to apparent lack of interest and because there are so many user options in Macrex that it would take several versions of Macrex macros to satisfy user preferences.

What's involved?

Email me: Send Message and I'll send you a link to a page where you can download the macro files. First you would download Macro Express, the independent macro utility program that my macros are written in; it's shareware, free to try for 30 days ($40 to purchase after the trial). You can download the program from the Macro Express web site. (Do not download "Macro Express Pro," which is a different program.)

After you get Macro Express installed, then you'll open my macro file in Macro Express (similar to 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 whenever you want to use the macros. Yes, it does take a little work to get it all set up, but you're going to spend maybe one hour or so in order to save many hours in the long run. In addition to my macro file, you will get a practice sheet, a list of the macros and shortcuts, and a PDF of the instructions (which are also online).

My macro files are not time-limited because of not being a stand-alone application. 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 an honor system. I am asking an introductory price of $45. My 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.

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 & SP3), Windows Vista, and Windows 7 (but see below about Windows 7 and Cindex)

  • Adobe Reader versions 6, 7, 8, 9, and X (but see below about a setting in Adobe Reader X)
  • Adobe Acrobat Professional versions 8, 9, and X

  • SKY Index versions 6 and 7

  • Cindex for Windows versions 1.5 and 2.0

  • Macrex version 8 (the Macrex macros have not been tried with earlier versions)

  • Macro Express versions 3.8, 3.8.0.1, and 3.8.1.1 (but note that the current macros for Cindex require 3.8.1.1, not 3.8.0)

  • PDF-XChange Viewer version 2.x

Adobe Reader X Problems

In Adobe Reader X, there is a new feature called protected mode, which is on by default. This mode prevents you from copying from the file. In order to be able to copy from a PDF in Reader X (at all), you must turn off this option:
  1. Open Adobe Reader X.
  2. On the Edit menu, select Preferences.
  3. The Preferences dialog box will appear. Select the General category from the left pane.
  4. Untick the "Enable Protected Mode at Startup" check box to disable the feature.

Cindex and Windows 7

In Windows 7, Cindex needs to be run in compatibility mode. Because Cindex is running in compatibility mode, in order to run the Cindex macros, Macro Express must also be run in compatibility mode. This is not the same thing as the "XP mode" that's only available in the more expensive editions. (This only applies to Cindex -- SKY and Macrex work fine in Windows 7 and Macro Express works fine with them.)

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

Email me: Send Message. I'll send you a link to a page where you can download the files you need and instructions. The macros currently exist in several separate files: one for SKY, one for Cindex, and one for Macrex. (Only one macro file can be running at a time.)

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. Both files use the same keyboard shortcuts. Also, there's a menu of the basic macros that you can invoke by pressing Ctrl+M in your PDF; after you have the menu open, you can initiate a macro either by pressing a hot key or by clicking on the macro name.

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

No, because that's simply 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.)

What about copying diacritics?

The macros cannot copy every possible diacritic. Macro Express is not Unicode-compliant. It can only copy diacritics that are part of the Windows 1252 character set (sometimes referred to as "ANSI" or "ISO-8859-1," although they're not exactly the same). This character set includes many but not all diacritics for Western European languages. Also, some characters may not be the same in different fonts.

Here are some more pages on the Windows 1252 character set (there are a lot of charts about this on the Net, but many are hard to read and not all of them display the characters correctly):

For more information on Unicode, see the extensive articles on Wikipedia.com and The Unicode Consortium FAQ.

I don't want to bother with macros. Can you copy 2,345 names for me?

Yes, I could use the macros to enter the names for you as a subcontractor. I can create a Cindex .CDX file or archive file; a SKY (SK7) file; a file that is importable into Macrex (a .MBK file); or a delimited text file.

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 others indexers 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 as far as I know, none of them produce an actual index that meets 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 such a program might not be able to find all instances of a word. 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 at times. For more information:

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 few years ago, an editorial colleague of mine who is an indexer took on a large project involving thousands of pages with a huge number of words in a variety of languages, including many proper names and place names, and the project required separate indexes of people and places. She mentioned to me that it was going to be prohibitively time-consuming to type all these names 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 were able to modify the macros to work directly 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.

I reserve the right not to share these macros with particular individuals at my own discretion.

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, the late Dr. Jean-Louis Brindamour, and Ku, Fu-Sheng, for inspiration and encouragement.

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