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Anonymous

Answered

Search function in PDF not working for words in a pdf document

Forum|Forum|14 years ago
October 31, 2011
22 replies
456672 views

I am using Adobe Reader Ver 10.1.1 (All updates)

I have a pdf document in which I am unable to search for words. No words in the document are found even though they do exist. If I copy a word from within the document and paste it into the search criteria then instead of getting the word that I copied, I get substitute characters and it can in fact find these characters as the word being searched.

The document is a catalog and can be downloaded from the following URL.

http://www.carbatec.com.au/getcatalogue?zenid=d1cuvbat0ois0g37r0r33vnah1

I will appreciate any help as to why I cannot search for words in the document.

Correct answer Redmundial80

Open up PDF file in Adobe Reader
Go to the top menu bar and click Edit then Preferences
When the Preferences box opens, select the Search category on the left
When in the Search category look to the bottom and click on the Purge Cache Contents box/button
Finally Click OK in the bottom right of Preferences and re-attempt search
The PDF should now be fully searchable

Show previous replies

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Chilly52

New Participant

I have the newest version of Acrobat Pro DC, I followed the steps above but I am still unable to search for test. The document is 365 pages, does anyone have any suggestions on why?

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Peg5ED1

New Participant

Might want to add that you need to close the file and reopen it. Otherwise it doesn't work right away.

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RebeccaA48

New Participant

I followed your suggestion, but it did not work either. Would uninstalling & reinstalling Adobe work?

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djkrys

New Participant

It appears Adobe is absolutely rubbish at doing the one thing it's supposed to do. I too have just discovered I have a pdf manual that I cannot search. The document contains text but it is not in any format that can be understood - for example if I copy the word "Control" from the document, this is the result ".-20.+", I understand if the text has been compressed for the web, however, if only the program could then decode it back when loaded wouldn't that be an amazing idea. What a shame that they haven't bothered. I have a document, I can read it page by page, I can select all the text but if I paste it into anything other program it is gibberish so they may have just as well sent me a jpg and have done with it. What is the point of Adobe Acrobat Reader if it can't undertand it's own compression.

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Clarice Qiu

New Participant

You can print the document as pdf. Then transfer the digitally printed pdf document into word. Then use the word document for searching. #hack

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Cesare5E34

New Participant

Yes, it worked.

In my case, I only converted the document into word and searched on it, but...

Really strange things happen in the world. I think it is because of Covid 19, isn't it?

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SSUMMERS27

New Participant

I am having same issue when searching drawings.

I was advised the following:

"The only thing that gets locked is the viewport. None of our layers our locked.

For our tags, they are annotative blocks that get edited per instance."

Can someone explain how to fix this please?

Thank you!

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georgehifi

New Participant

This is also happening to me, I cannot use word search, it come up with "no matches were found.

This is the PDF I'm looking at and trying to search.

https://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?PageNum=0&docid=10469042&IDKey=8145247719B0%0D%0A&HomeUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO1%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526d%3DPALL%2526p%3D1%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsrchnum.htm%2526r%3D1%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526s1%3D10469042.PN.%2526OS%3DPN%2F10469042%2526RS%3DPN%2F10469042

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AlanBountham

New Participant

I tried the edit - preferences - purge cache and it did not work.

I eventually got it to work by clicking the EDIT PDF tab, and it made the document "editable".

after that, the search function worked.

if its a big document, go to settings and click "make all pages editable", and i'll run thru all the pages.

im using adobe acrobat pro 2017.

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billdakelski

New Participant

this did not work for me, it only happens in some docs and not others

AnandSri

Community Manager

Hello Billdakelski,

We're sorry for the trouble you had with Adobe Reade. Does these PDFs contain images only or text as well? Are those scanned PDF?

If after trying the suggestions above, you are still experiencing the issue, try repairing Adobe Reader once from help>repair installation(only for Windows), reboot the machine after repair.

Make sure that you have the latest version of Adobe Reader installed, check for any pending updates from help>check for updates. Reboot the machine after installing any updates.

If it is specific to one PDF, Is it possible to share the PDF file with us so that we can test it at our end? To share the file, please use Adobe Send feature, login to https://cloud.acrobat.com/send using your Adobe ID(email) and password, upload the file, share the link to files via private message only, How Do I Send Private Message

What is the dot version of Adobe Reader installed? To identify refer to Identify the product and its version for Acrobat and Reader DC

Is it a Mac or Windows machine and what is the version of OS installed?

Let us know how it goes and share your observation.

Thanks,

Anand Sri.

shalinis38966990

Participating Frequently

I am trying to attached the file/image, ...here you go.

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defaulto5c0g28itq6b

New Participant

Hi,

I saw your thread and think I found a fix for your pdf search issue. Nothing worked for me either. When I download my eBay orders as "Microsoft print to Pdf". I couldn't search for a keyword. But when I downloaded them as "save as Pdf" this fixed the problem.

So it could be the format you are downloading the pdf in the first place.

Hope that helps 🙂

shalinis38966990

Participating Frequently

I cannot select or highlight it. Which I was able to do earlier. Somehow I cannot do anything on Adobe.

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JayPP

New Participant

I have Adobe Reader DC version 2020.009.20063 and tried two or three recommended ways to solve this by going to the registry... did not work. I solved my failure to search problem simply by going to EDIT, PREFERENCES, SEARCH and de-selected "ENABLE FAST FIND." Now I can search my 571 page document with ease. Prior to this discovery, when I tried to search, I got an "exception processing message 0xc000007b" message.

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Anonymous

Thanks a lot for the help. I've been looking for a solution for a long time and the only tip that worked was yours!

shalinis38966990

Participating Frequently

Adobe acrobat reader DC Release Version 2015.010.20056

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Redmundial80Correct answer

New Participant

Open up PDF file in Adobe Reader
Go to the top menu bar and click Edit then Preferences
When the Preferences box opens, select the Search category on the left
When in the Search category look to the bottom and click on the Purge Cache Contents box/button
Finally Click OK in the bottom right of Preferences and re-attempt search
The PDF should now be fully searchable

BrianMS51

New Participant

Hi

I have been struggling for ages to try and search in certain PDF documents and had given up. Then I decided to look on this forum. The first suggestion that I tried was this one AND IT WORKED BRILLIANTLY.

Thank you soooooooo much

shalinis38966990

Participating Frequently

I still cannot search.

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