Search tips pdf

No registration, installation, or watermarks. Compress Convert Merge Edit Sign. Smallpdf for Teams New. Free Trial. Compress PDF. PDF Converter. PDF Scanner. Split PDF. Merge PDF. Edit PDF. PDF Reader. Number Pages. Delete PDF Pages. Rotate PDF. PDF to Word. PDF to Excel. Word to PDF. Excel to PDF. Unlock PDF. Protect PDF. How-To Guides. Download This PDF. In the text box, enter your search term.

The first match will be highlighted. PDF searching made easy. You can selectively replace the search term with alternative text. You replace text one instance at a time. Whole Words Only. Finds only occurrences of the complete word you type in the text box. Finds only occurrences of the words that match the capitalization you type. Include Bookmarks. Include Comments. 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. The Search window enables you to look for search terms in multiple PDFs. 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.

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

To see more results, run a new search. 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. 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. Makes the document active in the document window. Expand the list to show the individual search results within that document. General Search Result icon. 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.

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

Attachment icon. Opens a file that is attached to the searched parent PDF and shows the highlighted instances of the search terms. For a video, see Saving Search Results in Acrobat.

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.

Restricts the search to the current PDF, all of a currently open PDF Portfolio if applicable , an index, or a location on your computer. What word or phrase would you like to search for. Return Results Containing. 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. 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.

Include Attachments. Use These Additional Criteria document properties. You can select multiple property-modifier-value combinations and apply them to searches. 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.

First menu property. Indicates the document characteristic to search for. Second menu modifier. Indicates the level of matching. 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.

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. Use before a search term to exclude any documents that contain that term. Or, type paris NOT kentucky to find all documents that contain the word paris but not the word kentucky. 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. Use to search for all instances that have either term but not both. 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.

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. If you have upgraded recently, update the index before using Acrobat X to search. To read file data about a selected index, click Info.

To exclude an index from the search, select it and click Remove. Selecting the Match Whole Word Only option when searching indexes significantly reduces the time taken to return results. 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. 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.