Searching PDFs

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.

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.

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.

Display the Find toolbar

Open the Search window

Arrange the PDF document window and Search window

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.

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.

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)

Sort instances in the search results

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:

Makes the document active in the document window. Expand the list to show the individual search results within that document.

In PDFs, jumps to that instance of the search term, usually in the body text of the PDF. The instance of the search term is highlighted in the document.

In non-PDF files, opens the file; or if opening of that file type is restricted, opens a message dialog box.

Opens the Bookmarks panel and highlights the instances of the search terms.

Opens the Comments panel and highlights the instances of the search terms.

May open a message indicating that the layer is hidden and asking if you want to make it visible.

Opens a file that is attached to the searched parent PDF and shows the highlighted instances of the search terms.

Save search results

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

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.

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.

Enter the text or phrase to search for.

Restricts your search results according to the option you choose:

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

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.

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.

Uses the Boolean operators that you type with the search words into the What Word Or Phrase Would You Like To Search For box. Available only for searching multiple PDFs or PDF indexes.

Note: You cannot run wildcard searches using asterisks (*) or question marks (?) when searching PDF indexes.

Includes the basic search options plus five additional options:

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.

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.

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

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

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

Appears only for searches across multiple PDFs or PDF indexes. You can select multiple property-modifier-value combinations and apply them to searches. This setting does not apply to non-PDF files inside PDF Portfolios.

Note: You can search by document properties alone by using document property options in combination with a search for specific text.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

Search features preferences

In the Preferences dialog box under Categories, select Search.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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