Chapter 7. Searching PDFs

Have you ever turned your office upside down searching for that paper you know you filed in the drawer behind your desk? It's there, you know it…and yet you can't find it. Well, if you had implemented a PDF workflow and stored your files electronically , finding and retrieving any document would take a matter of seconds using Adobe Reader.

Adobe Reader offers you a powerful search engine to perform full-text searches in PDF documents on your local computer, on a network server, on a CD-ROM, or hosted on the Internet. Using Reader's basic and advanced search features, you can search through thousands of files and locate documents quickly and easily.

Using the Find Toolbar

You can perform simple text searches with either one of two tools in Adobe Reader. If you have a document open in the Document pane, you can use the Find toolbar or the Search tool. Use the Find toolbar when you want to perform simple searches for keywords in an open document. Use the Search tool when you want to search in files not open in the Document pane, and when you want to narrow search results using search criteria.

To use the Find toolbar:

1.	Open a file in Adobe Reader. To use the Find toolbar, a file must be open.
2.	Open the Find toolbar by selecting Edit > Find or press Ctrl/Command+F.
3.	Type the text to be searched for in the Find toolbar text box ( Figure 7.1 ). Figure 7.1. Type text to search for in the text box in the Find toolbar.
4.	Press the Enter/Return key.
5.	Reader opens the page where the first occurrence of the searched word appears and highlights all instances of the word throughout the document.
6.	Click Next in the Find toolbar. The next highlighted instance of the searched word appears. If the next occurrence of the word appears on another page, the page opens in the Document pane. Use the Previous and Next buttons in the Find toolbar to move back and forth to find instances of the searched word.
7.	To search for a new word(s), type the word(s) to be searched in the Find toolbar and press the Enter/Return key.

How can I expand or narrow my search?

You can expand and narrow the search criteria using the options available in the Find toolbar. Click the down arrow adjacent to Find ( Figure 7.2 ) and select Include Comments to search comments or select Include Bookmarks to include bookmarks in your search. If you want to expand the search for both comments and bookmarks, return to the pull-down menu after selecting one item and select the other. Each time you select one of the menu options it remains enabled until you select it to turn it off.

Figure 7.2. Open the pull-down menu and select items to help you narrow or expand your search.

To narrow your search you can select Whole words only to search for whole words and Case-Sensitive to search with case sensitivity. You can likewise select one item, return to the menu and select another item if you want to include both whole words and case-sensitivity .

Using Basic Search

Whereas using the Find toolbar requires you to open a document in Adobe Reader, the Search tool can be used either with or without documents open in the Document pane. Using the Search tool enables you to search PDF documents stored on your hard drive, on a network server, on a CD-ROM, or those hosted on Web sites.

To use the Basic Search Options:

1.	Click the Search tool ( Figure 7.3 ) or press Ctrl/Command+Shift+F. The Search pane opens in the How To window to the right of the Document pane. Figure 7.3. Click the Search tool.
2.	Open the pull-down menu below the radio button for All PDF Documents in ( Figure 7.4 ) and select Browse for Location. The Browse For Folder dialog opens. Figure 7.4. Open the pull-down menu in the Search pane and select Browse for Location .
3.	Choose the folder you want to search in the Browse For Folder dialog ( Figure 7.5 ). The target area to be searched can be a folder or a hard drive attached locally to your computer or a network server. Click OK to return to the Search pane. Figure 7.5. Navigate the Browse For Folder dialog to find a folder or hard drive to search.
4.	Check the options to include in your search.
5.	Type the word(s) or phrase you want to search in the text box.
6.	Click Search to begin the search. Adobe Reader searches all PDF files within the target folder or hard drive and reports the findings in the Results area of the Search pane ( Figure 7.6 ). Note that when you position the cursor over a listed document in the Results section, the page number for the first found word is displayed in a tool tip. Figure 7.6. Results are reported in the Search pane.
7.	Click the symbol adjacent to the listed items. In Windows the symbol appears as a plus (+) when a list is collapsed . Click on the plus (+) symbol to expand the list, and the symbol changes to a minus (). On the Macintosh the symbol appears as a right arrow ( Figure 7.7 ) for collapsed lists and a down arrow for expanded lists. Figure 7.7. On the Macintosh, a right arrow indicates a collapsed list and a down arrow indicates an expanded list.
8.	Click an item in the list and the respective PDF opens in the Document pane, showing the page where the first found word appears.

How can I sort the Results list?

When you complete a search, the files are listed in order of relevance ranking, from highest to lowest . The measure of relevance ranking is the ratio of found words to total words. For example, if 50% of the total words in a file contain the searched words, that file ranks higher than a file in which 10% of the total words contain the searched words.

You can change the sort order by opening the Sort by pull-down menu ( Figure 7.8 ) that appears in the Search pane after performing a search. Choose from Date Modified to list results according to the last date modified in descending order, choose Filename to sort files alphabetically by filename, or choose Location to sort files according to hard drive and folder locations.

Figure 7.8. Open the Sort by pull-down menu and select from the menu options to change the sort order.

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Chapter 7. Searching PDFs