8

Here is my scenario and system:

System: Win-7, 64-bit.

Scenario: Very simply, I have a folder on my Dropbox account, titled \Papers. Within this folder, I have a lot of PDF files, and I have even more sub-folders of various names, also with PDF files.

What I want to do, is simply enter a search word, and have something return all the PDFs starting in the \Papers root directory that have that keyword.

Is there something that does this seamlessly and nicely? My only other option is to go through my hundreds of PDFs one by one and attempt to sort them like that. I would rather not do that.

P.S. I am open to moving all my PDFs to a cloud storage service that might in fact have such nice search capabilities. If that is easier to do, feel free to bring my attention to it. I am currently only aware of Dropbox and Google Drive.

Ben N
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Spacey
  • 235

4 Answers4

6

Foxit Reader is a great PDF viewer that has a very useful, fast search engine. I have used it many times when looking for a keyword through hundreds of PDF documents. It is also free.

It is simple to search for a string of characters in multiple documents as follows:

  1. Click "Search" on the left side in the Find ribbon. Then a search bar will pop up on the right side.
  2. Type what you want to search for in the top text box and state which directory to search in.
  3. Click "Search".
  4. Done!
David
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3

Use the native Windows-Search with a special "Filter" for PDFs, eg

Foxit:

Adobe:

There "should" be an IFilter for PDFs as part of Adobe Reader 9 and Adobe Reader XI:

TET:

Include your Dropbox- or GoogleDrive-Folder into the search-index and done. This allows you to search directly from within Windows-Explorer. Read more about the options for the indexer:

Community
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akira
  • 63,447
1

You may need to consider a reference manager like Mendeley.

Bichoy
  • 238
0

Below are some solutions which can search inside not just PDFs but files of all types (plus inside address books, local emails, etc.):

  • Copernic Desktop Search
  • The Search box at the bottom when you click on Windows 7's Start button
  • Google Desktop Search

I think Copernic is better than Windows 7 Search, which in my testing found some but not all files. Google Desktop Search did not miss anything, but since 2011 it's no longer supported.

doanviettrung
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