Open Source Icon Collection
PDF or portable document format has become the standard choice for documentation for most of today’s business offices. In fact, in July of 2008, the International Organization for Standardization or ISO issued an ISO number 32000-1:2008 declaring PDF as an open standard. Aside from being a publicly available format, being open standard means that the creator of the format possesses rights to every conceivable use. Even before the July 2008 standardization, major offices around the world have already relied on the robustness of the PDF. However, due to the frequency of updates for the format and PDF reader application, new and traditional users often find themselves exploring the printable document format. That even includes simple routines, like text search within PDF.
So, how does one search text and other content within a PDF file? To begin with, the user must first understand the difference between an ordinary document file and a PDF file. Unlike the ordinary Microsoft Word file, the PDF document is uneditable. There is no way you can add, delete, or change any content within a PDF file. Therefore, desiring to find a specific string of text for editing purposes is plainly of no use. Nevertheless, if the desire to find a string of text is for search purposes, then it is likely that you will gain something.
Finding text content within a printable document format is as easy as pressing CTRL plus F on your keyboard, in the case of Windows and MAC platforms. And just like common word processors, a FIND dialog box will appear on the PDF reader screen after pressing CTRL + F. This is actually the first of three ways to access the FIND dialog box. The second method is to click on the Edit menu, and locate-click the Find command. The third method to access the FIND dialog box is simply to locate the Find tool button on the toolbar of the PDF reader, which is located most commonly under the File menu bar. The Find tool button has the icon image of a pair of binoculars. Pressing the binocular icon will also result to the display of the Find dialog box.
Within the Find dialog box, there are four items present. First is the Find What text box, where the user types in the search keywords. The second and third items are the Find Again and Cancel button. Pressing Find Again or simply pressing the ENTER key on the keyboard will lead the user to the exact position where the search keywords are found. If the search keywords are not present, a warning message box will appear. The fourth item consists of search options, such as Match Whole World Only, Match Case, Find Backwards, and Ignore Other Characters Width. Depending on your search options, the user may check any or a combination of the check boxes.
Search within PDF on the World Wide Web has also become possible now, thanks to its popularity. Major search engines like Google now incorporate PDF searches. Just click on the Advanced Search link, type in your search keywords and Google will scour every PDF file in the information superhighway. Indeed, searching content within PDFs is certainly an elementary thing to do.
Here are few related articles
Filed Under: Open Source
