PDF Text Search
Choose a PDF, type what you are looking for, and get the pages where it appears, how many times on each, and a bit of the text around it. The file stays on your device.
Runs in your browser: nothing you enter is sent anywhere.
How to use it
- Choose or drop a PDF and wait until its text is read.
- Type a word or phrase.
- Read the pages and counts. Turn on Match case or Whole words only if you need them.
How it works
The text of each page is read with pdf.js. Your phrase is searched with a Unicode-aware pattern after whitespace is normalised, so accents and other scripts work. Counting is done per page, and the total is the sum.
Example
Searching for “the” in a two-page text where page 1 says “The cat and the dog” and page 2 says “other”: page 1 has 2 matches. With Whole words only, “other” is not counted. Without it, page 2 would also match as “the” sits inside “other”.
Tips
- Use Whole words only for short words.
- To pull out all the text instead, use the PDF to text tool.
Frequently asked questions
Is the search case sensitive?
No, unless you tick Match case. By default "pdf", "PDF" and "Pdf" all match.
What does Whole words only do?
It skips matches inside longer words. Searching for "art" finds "art" but not "party" or "article".
Is a phrase split over two lines found?
Yes. Line breaks and runs of spaces are treated as a single space, so "data sheet" is found even if the line ends between the words. A word hyphenated at a line end is not joined.
Why does a word I can see not turn up?
The page may be a picture, as in a scan, and then there is no text to search. Some PDFs also store letters in an odd order or split a word into pieces, which can hide a match.
How many examples are shown per page?
The count is exact, and up to three snippets are shown for each page.