Advanced Text Search in PDFs
The ability to instantly search text in PDF files is one of the best features of digital readers when compared to traditional paper media. Unfortunately, many PDF readers are only limited to basic text matching functions, not fully utilizing the potential of the digital format.
PDF Owl includes some powerful search features that allow readers to narrow down their search results, precisely adjusting the search query.
Image: the search options are accessible via the magnifying glass button on the left side of the search field, or by the shortcut ⌘ + ↓ after navigating to the search text field with ⌘ + F.
Some of the search options help with:
- Searching only within annotated pages
- Searching within selected outline pages
- Searching variations of words using regular expressions
- Use regular expressions, powerful matching patterns often used in other software
- ... and many other useful cases, so read on
Specifying Where to Search
It happens when a reader is only interested in searching text within particular chapters of books, or sections of articles – this is when Outline search option is helpful. To enable the option, select interested outline items in the outline browser on the right side (hold ⌘ to select multiple items), then pick Selected Outline Items for the “Where:” section of the menu.
For someone reading actively and annotating as they read, the option of searching within Annotated Pages may be of great value. It allows searching text across all annotated pages, so a highlighted memorable verse can be easily found in text.
Searching on Current Page is useful when you need to quickly highlight a term on the page that you are reading.
Finally, the Range search option allows a reader to specify the range of pages to search on: parts of a chapter, or ranges crossing multiple chapters, as the reader needs.
Specifying How to Match
The Match Case option is useful when you know the exact letter capitalization of your searched place. For example, searching "Yellow" with the first letter capitalized, rather than "yellow", allows searching the name rather than the color mentioned in text. It discards places that do not match the exact capitalization of letter as typed in the query.
The Whole Word option allows finding entire words as typed in the query rather than matching parts of a word. For example, typing "ship" allows the word rather matching "relationship" or "worshiper"
The RegEx option is useful for searching by regular expressions – those are advanced queries used by power users in many other apps. Examples of useful regular expressions are listed in the table:
| Use case | RegEx | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Find any of multiple words |
Use vertical bar character `|` for separating the searched words
|
`tao|confucian|buddhist` allows searching either of the religions mentioned
|
| Find words that can be spelled differently |
Put character possibilities in brackets `[ ]`
|
`[TD]ao` allows searching "Tao" as well as less common spelling "Dao"
|
| Find any number | Use brackets, as in previous example, to find any character from 0 to 9. |
`[0-9]+` allows finding any number
|
| Find any sum of money mentioned |
Find the dollar sign (`$`) followed by any number of spaces (`\s+`), followed by any number, as in previous example
|
`\$\s*[0-9]+` allows finding any number preceded by the dollar sign
|
Table: some of use cases for regular expressions.
RegEx'es are much more powerful than that, but outside of scope of this page. You can learn more about regular expressions from the tutorial regular-expressions.info, or check out the reference.
Keep in mind that matching options can be combined,
so searching RegEx `[TD]ao` with the Whole Word option on will find "Tao", but not "Taoism".
PDF Owl is a tool for enhancing PDF files for better reading experience. It includes reading and annotating functions. It is available for MacOS.
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