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Help me search through .pdf files

The SnertThe Snert Registered User regular
edited October 2009 in Help / Advice Forum
I have a bunch of .pdf files of research journals and articles. Unfortunately, these files don't allow me to search within the text. I know some .pdf files allow full text searching, and was wondering if there is any software or some utility that would allow me to do so with these.

The Snert on

Posts

  • underdonkunderdonk __BANNED USERS regular
    edited October 2009
    http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/how-to-search-for-text-inside-multiple-pdf-files-at-once/

    underdonk on
    Back in the day, bucko, we just had an A and a B button... and we liked it.
  • CorvusCorvus . VancouverRegistered User regular
    edited October 2009
    You probably need to do an OCR conversion on the PDFs to make the text searchable. At least, that is usually the case when I run into this problem.

    Acrobat Pro will let you do this, I'm not up on the free-alternatives since I have Acrobat Pro at work, but I'm sure there are some.

    Corvus on
    :so_raven:
  • MovitzMovitz Registered User regular
    edited October 2009
    I'm pretty sure the normal search function for Vista and Win7 does this.

    [EDIT] Just tried it. It does

    Movitz on
  • SinterSinter Registered User regular
    edited October 2009
    I don't know if you've found a solution to this or not, but I might have something that works.

    At my job, I've been doing this exact thing: converting TIFF images (scanned documents with some printed text, and some hand-written) to searchable PDFs. I suspect the PDF files contain merely images (as in, they have no searchable or selectable text).

    I've been using a (free trial) program called Tiff Junction to batch-convert thousands of these files at a time. I just checked, and it does support converting "image-only PDFs" to searchable PDFs.

    The free version does add a small watermark to the top of each converted document, but the watermark is an image and won't disrupt any text-searching you do.

    Here's the link to the free trial of Tiff Junction:
    http://www.aquaforest.com/en/merge_tiff_junction.asp
    (just make sure you check the "Searchable PDF" option when you run the program)

    Sinter on
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