Combine boolean and proximity search

Report · Apr 17, 2017

Hi everyone,

I'm using Advanced Search to search a folder with several PDF files and I'm looking for a way to combine boolean and proximity search.

I'd like to search annual reports for passages about the passing of a board member. As there are several ways to describe the death of a director, I want to use the boolean expression: director AND (passed away OR died OR death OR passing)

If I am using boolean search with this expression, I get all documents where "director" and any of the other 4 words appear within the same document (which is quite likely to happen in an annual report). Therefore I need a proximity search to explicitly search for a passage where these words occur together (i.e. separated by no more than 30 words).

Unfortunately, proximity search is only available for a "match all words" search which apparently does not evaluate boolean expressions.

Does anyone have a solution or workaround for this problem?

Thank you very much in advance!

~ Paul

Report · Apr 18, 2017

I don't think it's possible with the built-in functions of the Advanced Search command of Acrobat.

However, I've developed a tool that performs a proximity search and allows you to save the results (since they are actually comments that are added to the file itself), so you could run it multiple times using a different search term each time and effectively achieve what you've described. It currently only allows for single-word searches, but if you wish I might be able to expand that to multiple-word terms.

You can find the tool here: Custom-made Adobe Scripts: Acrobat/Reader - Advanced Proximity Search

If you wish to discuss it further you can contact me privately at try6767 at gmail.com.