How to search inside PDFs with Windows Search?

Solution 1:

IFilters allow Windows Search to search within file contents.

Here are three popular PDF IFilters^†:

• Foxit PDF IFilter (commercial)
• TET PDF IFilter (free/commercial)
• Adobe PDF IFilter (32-bit / 64-bit) (free)

After installing one, you should be able to search within PDF files in the same way that you can for other types of files.

_{†:This article from 2009 has performance numbers, but they may not apply to current versions of the filters.}

Solution 2:

An alternative way to search through PDFs is to use the search function of PDF-XChange Viewer. It does not need indexing neither. This is my choice.

You can install the portable version. Hit Ctrl Shift F to get the search dialog:

Solution 3:

You can use Mendeley; it's free.

First, add your PDF files and index them. After that, you can search them with auto-complete search.

• You can also add notes on the PDF files with it.
• If you have a lot a lot PDF files, sometimes RAM overflows when you try to index if this happen, just decrease count of PDF files.
• Be careful, Mendeley actually is an academic program for reference system (yes, also you can use it for adding references to your Word document. I used it when I wrote my PHd Thesis; it was wonderful), so it will try to upload your PDF files to its server. If you want to work offline, change Mendeley's internet options and give it a wrong/offline proxy IP (like 127.3.0.1) . Then you can work with it off-line. NOT: You can also search in HTML or word files with Mendeley.