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Poslfit: Index Daemon

This webpage describes a service offered by Poslfit Inc. to facilitate the creation of document indexes using Good.iWare's GoodReader PDF annotation app for iOS, and Indexing Research's CINDEX program for creating document indexes on Macintosh and Windows computers.

Using this service, indexers can save time and effort marking index terms, while improving accuracy. And you can do your markup anywhere you can take your iPad without losing the full power and flexibility of CINDEX.

We have been using this service in-house since early 2012, and are currently offering it free, while we decide if there is a broader market for it. If we decide to impose a fee, we will give existing users six months' free use from the date the decision is announced here.

If you have any questions about the service, please email us at poslfit@gmail.com.

Overview

Here’s how the workflow goes.

  1. Open the PDF document to be indexed using GoodReader on your iPad.
  2. Highlight all the terms on each page that you want to appear in your index.
  3. Email the highlight annotations to our index daemon at index-daemon (at) poslfit.com.
  4. Get an email reply with an attachment containing all of your index terms with their page numbers.
  5. Import that attachment into CINDEX.
  6. Use CINDEX to prepare the index as usual.

Step by Step

The rest of this page shows an actual example of how to use our index daemon service. With pictures.

1. Open GoodReader

First, fetch and install the GoodReader app on your iPad. You can in theory use it on an iPhone, but probably won't enjoy trying to precisely highlight words on the smaller screen. Even on an iPad, we recommend the use of a stylus.

If you need to see a larger version of the screenshot at right, or any of the ones below, please click on it.

2. Highlight Index Terms

Use the highlighting tools in GoodReader to highlight the terms in the text that you want to index.

If the term you want to index doesn't appear in the text, you can also enter an annotation.

3. Export to Email

GoodReader will show you a draft email message.

4. Send the Email

Address the email to our index daemon at index-daemon (at) poslfit.com. Do not change the Subject line that GoodReader automatically provides. If the first page of your document is not page 1, add instructions to the daemon at the top of the message as follows.

4, 5, 6, 7, ...
first 4
i, ii, iii, iv, 1, 2, 3, ...
prelim 4
iii, iv, v, vi, vii, 1, 2, 3, ...
first iii, prelim 5

You can also add an instruction of the form “start 100” to any of the above to output index data based solely on markup beginning on page 100.

These instructions will be decoded by the daemon, which is a piece of software, and not a human being; so don't add anything else that might confuse it.

If you have a document that has a different numbering scheme, please let us know and we'll teach it to the daemon.

Make sure you have an Internet connection, and send the email message.

5. Receive an Index File

Within a minute or so of your email message reaching our server, the index daemon will email you back an email message with an attached index import file called poslfit-index.txt.

6. Import into CINDEX

That’s it. You’re done!