D.3 Searching the Abaqus PDF documentation

Search functionality varies widely depending on the PDF viewer, viewer version, and platform. For detailed information on a specific PDF viewer, refer to the user documentation for that application.

The Abaqus PDF documentation includes a compiled search index file (index_69.pdx) to enable accelerated collection-level searches. The index name associated with the index_69.pdx file is Abaqus 6.9 PDF Documentation. Searching this index is much faster than searching all the text in the individual books and is the recommended approach for searching the Abaqus PDF documentation. Indexed searching is currently available only on Windows platforms.

Adobe Reader 8.0 (available on Windows platforms) provides the capability to perform indexed searching. Some earlier versions of Adobe Reader provide indexed searching; however, some earlier versions provide only limited book-level search capabilities that do not take advantage of the compiled search index provided with the Abaqus PDF documentation. The following earlier versions of Adobe Reader provide indexed searching:

Acrobat Reader 5.1 with Search and Accessibility
Acrobat Reader 5.0.5 with Search and Accessibility
Acrobat Reader 4.05 with Search

For information on indexed searching with these earlier versions, refer to Acrobat Reader Help for each version.

D.3.1 Indexed searching with Adobe Reader 8.0

Adobe Reader 8.0 (available on Windows platforms) provides the capability to perform indexed searching when you use the advanced search options. By default, when you click the Search tool or select EditSearch in Adobe Reader 8.0, the basic search options are displayed in the Search PDF pane and you can search the current PDF document or search a folder containing the entire PDF collection; however, the search process may be very slow. It is recommended that you set a preference to always use the advanced search options.

After you set the search option preference, you must select the index that you want to search. Once the index has been selected, Adobe Reader saves the selection and you can proceed with your search. For information on searching techniques, see Adobe Reader Help.

Later versions of Adobe Reader also offer indexed searching capabilities; however, the procedure for setting up indexed searching will be slightly different.

Note: To use indexed searching, you must open Adobe Reader 8.0 from your desktop rather than from within your web browser. See Adobe Reader Help for more information. If you are using a 64-bit version of Internet Explorer as your web browser, this rule does not apply.

To set up indexed searching of the Abaqus PDF documentation in Adobe Reader 8.0:

Select EditPreferences, select Search from the list on the left, select the option Always use advanced search options, and click OK.
Click the Search tool or select EditSearch to display the advanced search options.
From the Look In list of options, select Select Index.
In the Index selection dialog box, do the following:
1. Select the Abaqus 6.9 PDF Documentation index.
2. If the index is not listed, click Add, locate the index_69.pdx file, and click Open.
3. Verify that no other indexes are selected.
4. Click OK to close the Index selection dialog box.

For further details on searching the Abaqus PDF documentation, see Chapter 6, “Searching the PDF documentation,” of Using Abaqus Online Documentation.