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dj0691
dj0691
Participating Frequently
November 21, 2019
Answered

Search for missing word on a page within a document

  • November 21, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 531 views

Hi all,  I'd like to know if there is a way to script or an existing method to find pages in a document that do not contain a certain word or phrase.  I have a document that is 400 pages and each one should contain at least one instance of a specific word or phrase based on user prompt.  Ideally the output would be a simple list of page numbers that are missing this word.  Thanks in advance for any assistance.

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Correct answer Test Screen Name

Ok, you may or may not find this fairly advanced. The method document.getPageNthWord is the root of all text extraction and searching in JavaScript. You would step through your pages, and look at each word in turn (in a loop). You can do whatever tests you like, such as "string does not match any of the words on a page", and take the action you want. Making output is also something of a challenge because of strong limits on what JavaScript can do, for security reasons.

2 replies

try67
Community Expert
try67Community Expert
Community Expert
November 21, 2019

In Theory, this is possible with a script, although 400 pages is pushing the limit of what a script in Acrobat can handle, from my experience. The alternative is to use a stand-alone tool, which is more complicated to develop, but much more robust.

    dj0691
    dj0691Author
    Participating Frequently
    November 27, 2019

    Thanks for the advice and input - greatly appreciated!  Sorry for the questions but the first time I've seen JavaScript was last week;)    A followup question:  how does the code receive the variable input from the User Prompt in the first step of the Adobe Action (Search & Remove Text)?  Here is the start of my initial code which will be under the Execute JavaScript step:

     

    // Looks over all pages and find a given string and  

    // displays page numbers that do not have this string

     

    var stringToFind = <how does the variable link here from user prompt in the Action?>

     

    for (var p = 0; p < this.numPages; p++) {

         // iterate over all words

         for (var n = 0; n < this.getPageNumWords(p); n++) {

               if (this.getPageNthWord(p, n) != stringToFind)

    try67
    Community Expert
    try67Community Expert
    Community Expert
    November 27, 2019

    It doesn't. If you use the Search & Remove Text command then your approach needs to be completely different.

    That command creates Redaction annotations over the matching it terms. You need to then look for those annotations in your script and based on their locations you could find out which pages don't containt the text you searched for.

    T
    Test Screen Name
    Legend
    November 21, 2019

    Are you a JavaScript programmer?

    dj0691
    dj0691Author
    Participating Frequently
    November 21, 2019

    In process of learning JavaScript and how it can be integrated within an Action Wizard

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