AIDA Detailed User Manual

Quick Start

1. Launch AIDA.exe.
2. Add one or more folders that contain PDFs, Word, or text files.
3. Wait for the initial scan and text extraction to finish.
4. Select a document on the left. Preview it in the centre. Use PDF tools on the right.

Interface Layout

• Top: App title bar, search field, window controls.
• Left: Library list or collections, file-type filters, thumbnail size.
• Centre: PDF preview or Extracted Text, page filmstrip, rename.
• Right: PDF tools (merge, split, encrypt, watermark) or library inspector.

Library & Folders

Add folders

• Choose folders on disk. AIDA indexes them recursively.
• Files are not copied into a proprietary vault.

Remove folders

• Removing a folder from the library drops it from the catalogue. The files on disk are not deleted.

Supported Formats

AIDA catalogues these types. Other extensions are ignored.

• PDF — .pdf
• Word — .docx (legacy .doc is not indexed)
• Plain text — .txt
• Markdown — .md, .markdown

Indexing & Watch

• AIDA tracks files by path and hash so it can resume safely.
• A background watch loop picks up new and changed files in added folders (about every 30 seconds).
• Thumbnails are generated locally for the library list and page filmstrip.

Search

• Use the top search field for titles, keywords, and extracted body text.
• The local Tantivy index is the primary search engine; SQLite is a fallback.
• File names and stems are searchable even before OCR finishes.
• Filter the left list by PDF, Word, or Text.

Preview & Rename

• The PDF tab renders pages locally (not a looping browser PDF plugin).
• The filmstrip jumps between pages on large files.
• Extracted Text shows the body AIDA indexed, plus any summary and keywords.
• Rename on the centre header renames the file on disk and updates the catalogue.

OCR

• Windows installers bundle Tesseract. Status in the footer shows when OCR is ready.
• Run OCR on image-only PDFs to fill the search index.
• AIDA can write a searchable PDF so the text lives in the file as well as the catalogue.

PDF Tools

The right PDF pane uses bundled QPDF for most page and security operations.

• Pages: merge, split, extract, remove, reorder, rotate 90° / 180° / 270°.
• Optimize: compress, images → PDF, watermark.
• Metadata: title, author, subject — save in the library and/or write into the PDF.
• Security: user and owner passwords, encrypt and decrypt.

PDF to Word

• Use PDF → Word to export extracted text to a .docx.
• This is a text export, not a pixel-perfect layout replica.

Collections & Tags

• Switch the left pane to Collections to group documents without moving files.
• Add tags from the library inspector so related files stay findable in search.

Local Summaries

• Phi-4-mini is downloaded into app data on first use so the installer stays smaller.
• Summaries and keyword chips are generated on your PC. Document text is not sent to us.
• A Vulkan or CPU llama.cpp build is chosen for your machine.

Backup & Data

• Back up your original folders as usual — that is the source of truth.
• Copy the AIDA app-data folder to keep search, tags, collections, and summaries.
• Uninstalling the app may leave app data behind; delete that folder to erase the catalogue.

Troubleshooting

New files not found in search

• Wait for the watch loop (about 30 seconds) or re-add / rescan the folder.
• Confirm the extension is in supported formats.

OCR unavailable

• Use a packaged Windows build so Tesseract is bundled. Sidecar engines are not always present in a raw tauri dev run.

Encrypt / watermark unavailable

• Those actions need QPDF. Packaged installers include it; the footer should say encrypt/decrypt is ready.

PDF preview looks blank

• Very large files may take a moment. Encrypted PDFs need the password first.