Generating an index for a retrieval of data provided by at least one document. Data is selected within the at least one document, a category is assianed to the selected data, a timestamp is assianed to the selected data, and a location indication to the selected data is determined. The selected data, the category, the timestamp, and the location indication of the selected data are stored as an entry of the index. The present invention therefore provides an effective and universally adaptive tool for contextual structuring and retrieval of data distributed over a plurality of electronic documents.