Tag Archives: Easy PDF Search

Searching PDF annotations

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You can search PDF annotations for specific values using Easy PDF Search.

You can easily search for values for one or more annotation types.  You can use wildcards in your search too,   For e.g. to search for an annotation’s author, you could use

david

which would return all pages containing annotations whose author value is david.  You could use

*david*

which would return annotations whose author value contains the text david.  Or you could use

david*

or

*david

which would return annotations starting with the text david or ending with the text david respectively.

If you want to see all annotations for your files, just enter a wildcard character and select the annotation types you wan to view e.g.

Easy PDF Search will then return all pages containing annotations of the free text, highlight, squiggly, strikeout, text and underline types.

 

Difference between search functions in Easy PDF Search and Easy PDF Explorer

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Easy PDF Search and Easy PDF Explorer both offer search functions, but they differ in how they work.

  • indexed and non-indexed search

When you first search a file in Easy PDF Search, it indexes the contents of the file so that subsequent searches are completed much faster.  New and modified files are also automatically indexed when needed.  In Easy PDF Explorer, the search is performed by opening each file and searching each page every time.

  • storage requirements

Because Easy PDF Search indexes the contents of your files, it needs additional storage to store the indexes.  The trade-off is your searches are completed much faster compared to if your files were not indexed.

  • search operators

When you search for a phrase like

transactional explication

in Easy PDF Explorer, it will return only files containing pages which contain the exact phrase.Easy PDF Search will instead return all files containing the words transactional or replication anywhere in the file, but both words must exist in the file.  You can add more words e.g.

transactional replication monitoring

in which case only files containing all 3 words are returned.To return all files containing either or some or all of the words, you can use the OR operator e.g.

transactional OR replication OR monitoring

You can even exclude files containing specific words or phrases.  For e.g. to return all files containing the word transactional replication but not monitoring, enter

“transactional replication” NOT monitoring

You can refine your search phrases as much as you want using the operators and parentheses e.g.

(“transactional replication” OR “full backups”) NOT monitoring

To return only files containing a specific phrase, you would enter the phrase enclosed in double quotes i.e.

“transactional replication”

  • proximity searches

Easy PDF Search can perform proximity searches using the NEAR function.  For e.g. entering

NEAR(transactional replication,20)

will return all files containing pages where the words transactional and replication appear within 20 words of each other.

  • wildcard searches

Easy PDF Explorer allows you to search for fragments of a word e.g. searching fortorcan return torn, monitor, or story.  Easy PDF Search works by searching entire words, and it can only perform prefix searches e.g.tor*will return torn.  It does not allow suffix or wildcard searches e.g. *tor or *tor*.

  • searching annotations and attributes

In Easy PDF Search, you can search the values of annotations and file attributes e.g. the annotation author, the PDF author etc.  You can use wildcard searches when searching annotations and attributes.