How to search in a PDF

Do you want to look for a word in an excessively long PDF and you do not know how to do it? Forget completely the rudimentary technique of doing it manually, reading page by page until you find that term, and there is a quick and easy way to search in pdfs.

That is why in this article we want to explain step by step and with an example how to search in a PDF, so that you do not have any problem when locating terms in a file of this extension.

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The first step to look for in a PDF document will obviously be to open the file where you want to find a specific word or phrase. The most common program to open these types of documents is Adobe Reader, so by default it is likely to open with this software. To illustrate this article, we will take a PDF file and a random example to explain the steps to follow.

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So, then you must go to the top menu 'Edit' and then click on the ' Search ' option that appears next to a symbol of a pair of binoculars. If you prefer, you can also opt for the keyboard shortcut: CTRL + F, that is, by pressing the 'Control' key followed by the letter 'F' on your keyboard. In case you are using this same program on a Mac computer, you should press: cmd + f

To remember this shortcut or shortcut, you can think of the English term that means search: "find", so the initial of this word is the one that accompanies the CTRL key.

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At this moment, a text box will appear in the upper right part of the screen, where you will have to type the word, expression or sentence that you want to look for in the PDF . Next, you have to click on the 'Next' button or press the enter key on your keyboard. In this way, Adobe Reader will search the entire text of the file until you find all the results that match what you have written.

In our example, suppose we want to find the word 'data', so we write it in the pop-up window and we enter it. Automatically, we highlight all the sentences in the document that include this term and we can go from one to the other using the 'Next' button.

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In case you want to perform a more precise search in the .pdf document, you should opt for the menu option: 'Edit / Advanced Search' ; and if you want to do it from the keyboard, in this case you will have to press in this order: Shift + Shift + CTRL + F.

With 'Shift / Shift' we refer to the key you use to write a single upper case, which contains an icon in the form of an up arrow and is located just above 'Control'.

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This time, a new window will appear next to your pdf reader with a search engine to write the word or phrase, but with many more options to choose from:

• Search in the current document or in all of a specific location.
• Complete words: to offer only the results that match whole words and not fragments of these.
• Coinc uppercase / lowercase: if you are looking for a word with a specific writing in uppercase and lowercase.
• Include bookmarks: the search will also be done in the bookmarks of the document.
• Include comments: it will be searched even in the comments of the pdf.

Following our example, we will look in the pdf for the word: 'Data' written initially with a capital letter and we will ask that you find us those that coincide exactly in your writing, activating the 'Coinc. upper / lower case. '

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In this way, the advanced search in pdfs with Adobe Reader will show us in the results window all the matches that it has detected, as well as we will see the highlighted text. If more than one result is found, you can see them one by one by selecting them in the list.

Note that some PDF documents are protected and do not allow you to search your text, so we recommend you check this other article about how to check out a pdf.