How to search for text inside multiple PDF files at once

Posted on November 9, 2007 at 11:43 am

PDF documents are probably the most commonly used set of documents in most offices today because of it’s ability to avoid accidental changes or modifications by unauthorized users. However, it’s a lot easier to find something you’re looking for in a Word document than it is for a PDF document because by default Windows search indexes all of the text inside of a Word document, thus making it easy to search all documents quickly.

The text inside PDF documents are not indexed by Windows or by other desktop search programs like Google Desktop, so most of the time if you need to find a particular PDF doc, you have to manually open each one and perform a search. If you’re simply looking for some text in one PDF, it’s not a problem, but if you need to scan through a bunch of PDF documents in a directory, you can use the Advanced PDF search features in Adobe.

With the advanced search, you can search all PDF files in a directory and it’s sub-directories in a single go. By default, if you open Adobe Reader and press CTRL + F, you’ll get the normal search box. It is located at the top right in the menu bar.

adobe search 

To use the advanced PDF search option, you can choose Open Full Reader Search in the drop down menu of the search box or press SHIFT + CTRL + F. 

Go ahead and enter the phrase you are searching for in the search box. Next choose the All PDF Documents In option under Where would you like to search heading.

pdf search

Browse to the folder where all of your PDF documents are stored and then choose the options for the search. These include Whole words only, Case-Sensitive, Include Bookmarks, and Include Comments.

pdf searches

Click Search and all PDFs under the current folder will be scanned for your term. Just click on the hyperlink in the results to open the file!

[tags]pdf search, search pdf files, word search pdf, search in pdf, search inside pdf, search multiple pdfs[/tags]

» Filed Under Computer Tips

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Comments

14 Responses to “How to search for text inside multiple PDF files at once”

  1. chris said on : June 12th, 2008 at 6:00 am

    thanks for this post!
    it was useful for me when I was looking for a way to search through a bunch of PDF files I was interested in.

    Must more useful than anywhere else,
    Chris


  2. Zen said on : June 25th, 2008 at 3:13 pm

    Thank you SO much!!!


  3. Robin Whitman said on : August 22nd, 2008 at 7:04 am

    Thank you. … One question: Is this feature in the free Adobe Reader, or is it part of the Acrobat software that creates PDF files?


  4. Naveen said on : January 19th, 2009 at 5:36 pm

    Life saver…Thanks!


  5. Dan said on : January 29th, 2009 at 1:15 pm

    I spent an entire summer manually searching 100 terms through 20 or so PDFs.

    If I had known this six months ago…


  6. Ellen said on : March 7th, 2009 at 3:21 pm

    I wish I had known this trick sooner for searching inside multiple pdf files! Thanks so much for having this information available to others — I will use this feature often. Thanks!!!!!


  7. Paul said on : March 30th, 2009 at 4:37 am

    this is very useful – however it seems to only check through or report back a maximum of 100 documents at a time


  8. mamo said on : April 1st, 2009 at 6:57 am

    Thanks you! It was very useful. Now I can save my e-books into one directory and make a smart e-library that can be searched quickly!
    thank you.


  9. Matt Ellis said on : April 9th, 2009 at 1:16 pm

    What about images as pdf’s? If the pdf is an image of a document, can I search for a text string to find it? I did a test and it looks like what you described, didn’t accomplish this. Although what you provided above is exteremely useful.


  10. Jutta said on : April 16th, 2009 at 8:08 am

    Great! If I had known last year when I translated a homepage with more than 100 pages and had to go through countless catalogues to check technical terms, it would have saved me a lot of time.


  11. Pehr said on : June 29th, 2009 at 9:50 am

    I needed to find out how to find specific instances of a topic within my digital filing system. This worked perfectly, now I will be able to avoid spending money on an expensive digital filing system.


  12. nawzad said on : October 5th, 2009 at 7:32 am

    Hi guys, can anyone tell me how can I search for 2 different words within many PDF files?


  13. Atalanta Software said on : November 9th, 2009 at 8:52 am

    Also you can try our utility – Multiformat File Searcher (www.atalantasoftware.com)


  14. Fidel said on : November 17th, 2009 at 7:26 am

    How about File hound! It’s a free program that searches for text inside files. It’s over at jimmythefork.com

    cheers,
    Fidel


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