PDF Indexer

In the previous post I mentioned I’d create an index for a load of downloaded PDFs, where the PDFs are of the filename TR-XXXX.PDF {XXXX is a number}, so we have a mapping of TR-XXXX to document title. At the time of writing that post, I wasn’t sure how I’d create the index.

The problem is to map the TR-XXXX.PDF to a document title, and I can’t see any easy way to map this without opening each PDF and typing out that title. It seems like the task is one of manual labour, but the following tool helps a little. It opens each PDF in turn using PowerShell, and allows you to type out the title into PowerShell, which feeds into an index file. You can have the PDF and PowerShell open side by side, so it’s just a case of: type out title, press ENTER, type out another title, and on... It’s a little automation that helps a little!

Image: PDF Indexer in Action!

Note: There probably is an index somewhere listing NetApp TRs and document title, I’ve not found it though and I’ve not asked (I found it not un-useful to be aware of all the TR titles - some of the TRs I never knew existed). If any reader is aware of an official index, please share the knowledge

The Script

Copy into a text editor and save as say PDF_Indexer.ps1 and then run in PowerShell. It needs to be run in the same folder as the PDFs.

[Int]$RangeStart = 4000

[Int]$RangeEnd   = 5000

If(Test-Path "Index.txt"){}

else{New-Item "Index.txt" -Type File -Force}

$FolderContents = Get-ChildItem

For($i=$RangeStart; $i -le $RangeEnd; $i++){

  $FolderContents | Foreach{

    If($_.Name -match ".+\.pdf$"){

      If($_.Name.Contains("$i")){

        Start-Process $_.Name

        $Title = Read-Host "Title TR-$i"

        ("TR-$i" + ":" + " $Title") | Out-File "Index.txt" -Append

      }

    }

  }

}