Finding a word in a pdf

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This wikiHow teaches you how to find a specific word or phrase in a PDF document using free Adobe Reader DC application or the Google Chrome browser for Mac and PC, or by using the Preview application on a Mac.

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Article SummaryX

1. Open the PDF in Adobe Reader.
2. Click Edit.
3. Click Find.
4. Type a word into the box.
5. Click Next.

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1. Acrobat User Guide
2. Introduction to Acrobat
   1. Access Acrobat from desktop, mobile, web
   2. What’s new in Acrobat
   3. Keyboard shortcuts
   4. System Requirements
3. Workspace
   1. Workspace basics
   2. Opening and viewing PDFs
      1. Opening PDFs
      2. Navigating PDF pages
      3. Viewing PDF preferences
      4. Adjusting PDF views
      5. Enable thumbnail preview of PDFs
      6. Display PDF in browser
   3. Working with online storage accounts
      1. Access files from Box
      2. Access files from Dropbox
      3. Access files from OneDrive
      4. Access files from SharePoint
      5. Access files from Google Drive
   4. Acrobat and macOS
   5. Acrobat notifications
   6. Grids, guides, and measurements in PDFs
   7. Asian, Cyrillic, and right-to-left text in PDFs
4. Creating PDFs
   1. Overview of PDF creation
   2. Create PDFs with Acrobat
   3. Create PDFs with PDFMaker
   4. Using the Adobe PDF printer
   5. Converting web pages to PDF
   6. Creating PDFs with Acrobat Distiller
   7. Adobe PDF conversion settings
   8. PDF fonts
5. Editing PDFs
   1. Edit text in PDFs
   2. Edit images or objects in a PDF
   3. Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages
   4. Edit scanned PDFs
   5. Enhance document photos captured using a mobile camera
   6. Optimizing PDFs
   7. PDF properties and metadata
   8. Links and attachments in PDFs
   9. PDF layers
   10. Page thumbnails and bookmarks in PDFs
   11. Action Wizard (Acrobat Pro)
   12. PDFs converted to web pages
   13. Setting up PDFs for a presentation
   14. PDF articles
   15. Geospatial PDFs
   16. Applying actions and scripts to PDFs
   17. Change the default font for adding text
   18. Delete pages from a PDF
6. Scan and OCR
   1. Scan documents to PDF
   2. Enhance document photos
   3. Troubleshoot scanner issues when scanning using Acrobat
7. Forms
   1. PDF forms basics
   2. Create a form from scratch in Acrobat
   3. Create and distribute PDF forms
   4. Fill in PDF forms
   5. PDF form field properties
   6. Fill and sign PDF forms
   7. Setting action buttons in PDF forms
   8. Publishing interactive PDF web forms
   9. PDF form field basics
   10. PDF barcode form fields
   11. Collect and manage PDF form data
   12. About forms tracker
   13. PDF forms help
   14. Send PDF forms to recipients using email or an internal server
8. Combining files
   1. Combine or merge files into single PDF
   2. Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages
   3. Add headers, footers, and Bates numbering to PDFs
   4. Crop PDF pages
   5. Add watermarks to PDFs
   6. Add backgrounds to PDFs
   7. Working with component files in a PDF Portfolio
   8. Publish and share PDF Portfolios
   9. Overview of PDF Portfolios
   10. Create and customize PDF Portfolios
9. Sharing, reviews, and commenting
   1. Share and track PDFs online
   2. Mark up text with edits
   3. Preparing for a PDF review
   4. Starting a PDF review
   5. Hosting shared reviews on SharePoint or Office 365 sites
   6. Participating in a PDF review
   7. Add comments to PDFs
   8. Adding a stamp to a PDF
   9. Approval workflows
   10. Managing comments | view, reply, print
   11. Importing and exporting comments
   12. Tracking and managing PDF reviews
10. Saving and exporting PDFs
    1. Saving PDFs
    2. Convert PDF to Word
    3. Convert PDF to JPG
    4. Convert or export PDFs to other file formats
    5. File format options for PDF export
    6. Reusing PDF content
11. Security
    1. Enhanced security setting for PDFs
    2. Securing PDFs with passwords
    3. Manage Digital IDs
    4. Securing PDFs with certificates
    5. Opening secured PDFs
    6. Removing sensitive content from PDFs
    7. Setting up security policies for PDFs
    8. Choosing a security method for PDFs
    9. Security warnings when a PDF opens
    10. Securing PDFs with Adobe Experience Manager
    11. Protected View feature for PDFs
    12. Overview of security in Acrobat and PDFs
    13. JavaScripts in PDFs as a security risk
    14. Attachments as security risks
    15. Allow or block links in PDFs
12. Electronic signatures
    1. Sign PDF documents
    2. Capture your signature on mobile and use it everywhere
    3. Send documents for e-signatures
    4. Create a web form
    5. Request e-signatures in bulk
    6. Collect online payments
    7. Brand your account
    8. About certificate signatures
    9. Certificate-based signatures
    10. Validating digital signatures
    11. Adobe Approved Trust List
    12. Manage trusted identities
13. Printing
    1. Basic PDF printing tasks
    2. Print Booklets and PDF Portfolios
    3. Advanced PDF print settings
    4. Print to PDF
    5. Printing color PDFs (Acrobat Pro)
    6. Printing PDFs in custom sizes
14. Accessibility, tags, and reflow
    1. Create and verify PDF accessibility
    2. Accessibility features in PDFs
    3. Reading Order tool for PDFs
    4. Reading PDFs with reflow and accessibility features
    5. Edit document structure with the Content and Tags panels
    6. Creating accessible PDFs
15. Searching and indexing
    1. Creating PDF indexes
    2. Searching PDFs
16. Multimedia and 3D models
    1. Add audio, video, and interactive objects to PDFs
    2. Adding 3D models to PDFs (Acrobat Pro)
    3. Displaying 3D models in PDFs
    4. Interacting with 3D models
    5. Measuring 3D objects in PDFs
    6. Setting 3D views in PDFs
    7. Enable 3D content in PDF
    8. Adding multimedia to PDFs
    9. Commenting on 3D designs in PDFs
    10. Playing video, audio, and multimedia formats in PDFs
    11. Add comments to videos
17. Print production tools (Acrobat Pro)
    1. Print production tools overview
    2. Printer marks and hairlines
    3. Previewing output
    4. Transparency flattening
    5. Color conversion and ink management
    6. Trapping color
18. Preflight (Acrobat Pro)
    1. PDF/X-, PDF/A-, and PDF/E-compliant files
    2. Preflight profiles
    3. Advanced preflight inspections
    4. Preflight reports
    5. Viewing preflight results, objects, and resources
    6. Output intents in PDFs
    7. Correcting problem areas with the Preflight tool
    8. Automating document analysis with droplets or preflight actions
    9. Analyzing documents with the Preflight tool
    10. Additional checks in the Preflight tool
    11. Preflight libraries
    12. Preflight variables
19. Color management
    1. Keeping colors consistent
    2. Color settings
    3. Color-managing documents
    4. Working with color profiles
    5. Understanding color management

You have lots of control and lots of possibilities for running effective and efficient searches in Adobe Acrobat. A search can be broad or narrow, including many different kinds of data and covering multiple Adobe PDFs.

If you work with large numbers of related PDFs, you can define them as a catalog in Acrobat Pro, which generates a PDF index for the PDFs. Searching the PDF index—instead of the PDFs themselves—dramatically speeds up searches. See Creating PDF indexes.

Search and replace features overview

You run searches to find specific items in PDFs. You
can run a simple search, looking for a search term within in a single
file, or you can run a more complex search, looking for various
kinds of data in one or more PDFs. You can selectively replace text.

You can run a search using either the
Search window or the Find toolbar. In either case, Acrobat searches the PDF body text, layers,
form fields, and digital signatures. You can also include bookmarks
and comments in the search. Only the Find toolbar includes a Replace
With option.

When you type the first few letters to search in a PDF, Acrobat provides suggestions for the matching word and its frequency of occurrence in the document. When you select the word, Acrobat highlights all the matching results in the PDF.

The Search window offers
more options and more kinds of searches than the Find toolbar. When
you use the Search window, object data and image XIF (extended image
file format) metadata are also searched. For searches across multiple
PDFs, Acrobat also looks at document
properties and XMP metadata, and it searches indexed structure tags
when searching a PDF index. If some of the PDFs you search have
attached PDFs, you can include the attachments in the search.

PDFs can
have multiple layers. If the search results include an occurrence
on a hidden layer, selecting that occurrence displays an alert that
asks if you want to make that layer visible.

Access the search features

Where you start your search depends on the
type of search you want to run. Use the Find toolbar for a quick
search of the current PDF and to replace text. Use the Search window
to look for words or document properties across multiple PDFs, use
advanced search options, and search PDF indexes.

1. Open it by choosing Edit > Find (Ctrl/Command+F).

A. Find field B. Find Previous C. Find Next D. Replace
With expands to provide text field 

Open the Search window

1. • Choose Edit > Advanced
     Search (Shift+Ctrl/Command+F).

   • On the Find toolbar, click the arrow  and
     choose Open Full Acrobat Search.

   Search appears as a separate window that you can
   move, resize, minimize, or arrange partially or completely behind
   the PDF window.

Arrange the PDF document window
and Search window

1. In the Search window, click Arrange Windows .

   Acrobat resizes and arranges the two windows side by side so that together they almost fill the entire screen.

   Note: Clicking the Arrange Windows button a second time resizes the document window but leaves the Search window unchanged. If you want to make the Search window larger or smaller, drag the corner or edge, as you would to resize any window on your operating system.

Find and replace text in PDFs

Find and replace text in a PDF

The Find toolbar searches the currently open
PDF. You can selectively replace the search term with alternative
text. You replace text one instance at a time. You cannot make a
global change throughout a PDF or across multiple PDFs.

1. Choose Edit > Find (Ctrl/Command+F).

2. Type the text you want to search for in the text box
   on the Find toolbar.

3. To replace text, click Replace With to
   expand the toolbar, then type the replacement text in the Replace
   With text box.

4. (Optional) Click the arrow  next
   to the text box and choose one or more of the following:

   
   Whole Words
   Only
   

   Finds only occurrences of the complete word you type
   in the text box. For example, if you search for the word stick,
   the words tick and sticky aren’t found.

   
   Case-Sensitive
   

   Finds only occurrences of the words that match the capitalization
   you type. For example, if you search for the word Web, the
   words web and WEB aren’t found.

   
   Include Bookmarks
   

   Also searches the text in the Bookmarks panel.

   
   Include Comments
   

   Also searches the text of any comments.

5. Acrobat jumps to the first
   instance of the search term, which appears highlighted.

6. Click Replace to change the highlighted text, or click Next to go to the next instance of the search term. Alternatively, click Previous to go back to the previous instance of the search term.

Find text in multiple PDFs

The Search window enables
you to look for search terms in multiple PDFs. For example, you
can search across all PDFs in a specific location or all files in
an open PDF Portfolio. The Replace
With option is not availble in the Search window.

If documents are encrypted (have
security applied to them), you cannot search them as part of a multiple-document
search. Open those documents first and search them one at a time.
However, documents encrypted as Adobe Digital Editions are
an exception and can be searched as part of a multiple-document
search.

1. Open Acrobat on your desktop (not in a web browser).

2. • In the Find toolbar, type the search text,
     and then choose Open Full Acrobat Search from
     the pop-up menu.

   • In the Search window, type the search text.

3. In the Search window, select All PDF Documents In. From
   the pop-up menu directly below this option, choose Browse For Location.

4. Select the location, either on your computer or on a
   network, and click OK.

5. To specify additional search criteria, click Show Advanced
   Options, and specify the options.

6. During a search, you can click a
   result or use keyboard shortcuts to navigate the results without
   interrupting the search. Clicking the Stop button under the search-progress
   bar cancels further searching and limits the results to the occurrences already
   found. It doesn’t close the Search window or delete the Results
   list. To see more results, run a new search.

Review and save PDF search results

Review search results

After you run a search from the Search window,
the results appear in page order, nested under the names of each
searched document. Each item listed includes a few words of context
(if applicable) and an icon that indicates the type of occurrence.

Jump to a specific instance in
the search results (single PDFs only)

1. If necessary, expand the search results.
   Then select an instance in the results to view it in the PDF.

2. To view other instances, click another instance in the
   results.

Sort instances in the search results

1. Select an option from the Sort By menu
   near the bottom of the Search window. Results can be sorted by Relevance
   Ranking, Date Modified, Filename, or Location.

Icons shown with search results

The icon next to an instance of the search
results indicates the search area in which the instance appears.
Selecting an icon has the following effect:

Document icon 

(General) Search Result icon 

Non-PDF Search Result or Metadata icon []

Bookmark icon 

Comments icon 

Layer icon 

Attachment icon 

Save search results

You can save the search results as a PDF or
CSV file. For a video, see Saving Search Results in Acrobat.

1. Click  and
   choose Save results to PDF or Save results to CSV.

Advanced Search Options

By
default, the Search window displays basic search options. Click
Show More Options near the bottom of the
window to display additional options. To restore the basic options,
click Show Less Options near the bottom of
the window.

You can set a preference so that
More search options always appear in the Search window. In the Preferences
dialog box under Categories, select Search.

Look In

Restricts the search to the current PDF, all of a currently
open PDF Portfolio (if applicable), an index,
or a location on your computer. If you choose to search an index,
a location, or a PDF Portfolio, additional options appear under Use
These Additional Criteria.

What word or phrase would you like to search for

Enter the text or phrase to search for.

Return Results Containing

Restricts your search results according to the option you
choose:

Match Exact Word Or Phrase

Searches for the entire string of characters, including spaces, in the same order in which they appear in the text box.

Match Any Of The Words

Searches for any instances of at least one of the words typed.
For example, if you search for each of,
the results include any instances in which one or both of the two
words appear: each, of, each of, or of each.

Match All Of The Words

Searches for instances that contain all your search words,
but not necessarily in the order you type them. Available only for
a search of multiple PDFs or index definition files.

Boolean Query

Use These Additional Criteria (text
options)

Includes the basic search options plus five additional options:

Proximity

Searches
for two or more words that are separated by no more than a specified
number of words, as set in the Search preferences. Available only
for a search of multiple documents or index definition files, and
when Match All Of The Words is selected.

Stemming

Finds
words that contain part (the stem) of the specified search word.
For example, a search for opening finds instances of open, opened, opens, and openly.
This option applies to single words and phrases when you search
the current PDF, a folder, or an index created with Acrobat 6.0
or later. Wildcard characters (*, ?) aren’t permitted in stemming
searches. Stemming isn’t available if either Whole Words
Only or Case-Sensitive is selected.

Include Bookmarks

Searches the text of any bookmarks, as viewed in the Bookmarks
panel.

Include Comments

Searches the text of any comments added to the PDF, as viewed
in the Comments panel.

Include Attachments

Searches files that are attached to the current PDF or other
attached PDFs (up to two levels deep).

Use These Additional Criteria (document
properties)

Check box

Applies the criteria set in the three connected options to
the search. (The check box is selected automatically when you enter
information in any of the three options for that set. After you
enter options, deselecting the check box doesn’t clear the entries;
they just aren’t applied to the search.)

First menu (property)

Indicates the document characteristic to search for. The available
options include Date Created, Date
Modified, Author, Title, Subject, Filename, Keywords,
Bookmarks, Comments, JPEG Images, XMP
Metadata, and Object Data.

Second menu (modifier)

Indicates the level of matching. If the first menu selection is a date, the available options in the second menu are Is Exactly, Is Before, Is After, Is Not. Otherwise, the available options are Contains and Does Not Contain.

Third box (value or text)

Indicates the information to be matched, which you type in.
If the first menu selection is a date, you can click the arrow to
open a calendar that you can navigate to find and select the date
you want.

Boolean operators

Commonly used Boolean operators include the following:

AND

Use between two words to find documents that contain both terms, in any order. For example, type paris AND france to identify documents that contain both paris and france . Searches with AND and no other Boolean operators produce the same results as selecting the All Of The Words option .

NOT

Use before a search term to exclude any documents that contain that term. For example, type NOT kentucky to find all documents that don’t contain the word kentucky . Or, type paris NOT kentucky to find all documents that contain the word paris but not the word kentucky .

OR

Use to search for all instances of either term. For example, type email OR e-mail to find all documents with occurrences of either spelling. Searches with OR and no other Boolean operators produce the same results as selecting the Any Of The Words option .

^ (exclusive OR)

Use to search for all instances that have either term but not both. For example, type cat ^ dog to find all documents with occurrences of either cat or dog but not both cat and dog.

( )

Use parentheses to specify the order of evaluation of terms. For example, type white AND (whale OR ahab ) to find all documents that contain either white and whale or white and ahab . (The query processor performs an OR query on whale and ahab and then performs an AND query on those results with white.)

To learn more about Boolean queries, syntax, and other Boolean operators that you can use in your searches, refer to any standard text, website, or other resource with complete Boolean information.

Search index files of cataloged
PDFs

A full-text index is created when someone
uses Acrobat to define a catalog of PDFs. You can search
that index rather than running a full-text search of each individual
PDF in the catalog. An index search produces a results list with
links to the occurrences of the indexed documents.

To search
a PDF index, you must open Acrobat as
a stand-alone application, not within your web browser.

In Mac OS, indexes created with some older versions of Acrobat are not compatible with the Acrobat X Search feature. If you have upgraded recently, update the index before using Acrobat X to search.

1. Choose Edit > Advanced
   Search.

2. Type the search text, and then click Show More
   Options, near the bottom of the Search window.

3. For Look In, choose Select Index.

4. Select an index from the list, or click Add and add an
   index. Repeat as needed.

   To read file data about a selected index, click
   Info. To exclude an index from the search, select it and click Remove.

5. Click OK to close the Index Selection dialog box, and
   then choose Currently Selected Indexes from the Look In menu.

6. Proceed with your search as usual.

   Selecting the Match Whole Word Only option
   when searching indexes significantly reduces the time taken to return
   results. See Creating
   PDF indexes.

Search features preferences

In
the Preferences dialog box under Categories, select Search.

Ignore Asian Character Width

Finds both half-width and full-width instances of the Asian
language characters in the search text.

Ignore Diacritics And Accents

Finds the search terms with any variation of the alphabetical
characters. For example, typing cafe finds both cafe and café. Likewise,
typing café finds both versions. If this option isn’t selected,
typing cafe doesn’t find café, and vice versa.

Always Show More Options in Advanced
Search

Shows the additional options available in the Search window,
in addition to the basic options.

Show Document Title In Search Results

Displays document titles in search results. If a document
does not have a title, displays the filename. When deselected, displays
filenames in search results.

Maximum Number Of Documents Returned In Results

Limits the search results in the Search PDF window
to a specific number of documents. The default value is 500, but
you can enter any number from 1 to 10,000.

Range Of Words For Proximity Searches

Limits the search results to those in which the number of
words between the search terms isn’t greater than the number you
specify. Accepts a range from 1 to 10,000.

Enable Fast Find

Generates a cache of information from any PDF that you search.
This cache reduces subsequent search times for that PDF.

Maximum Cache Size

Limits the temporary cache of search information for the Fast Find option to the specified size in megabytes (from 5 to 100,000). The default setting is 100.

Purge Cache Contents

Deletes the Fast Find option’s entire
temporary cache of search information.

1. Open your PDF file in the iLovePDF PDF Reader.
2. From the top menu bar, click on the search icon to start your search. Alternatively, use your keyboard’s Ctrl+F or Cmd+F shortcut.
3. In the Find text box, type your search term, then press Enter. 
4. You will see the first match of your search results highlighted. 
5. To jump to the next match, click on the down-facing arrow.
6. You can use the up and down-facing arrows to move between the search results.
7. When you’ve finished your word search, just close the dialog box.

Introduction:

Tips: If someone needs to find keywords in bookmarks or annotations, don’t forget to tick the “Include Bookmarks” and “Include Annotations” boxes.

Note: Despite the fact that you can employ the OCR engine to convert a PDF to a searchable one, that doesn’t necessarily mean this PDF is an editable one. It solely refers to the fact that this PDF can be searched and copied.

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