Advanced Search

PDF Studio comes with an Advanced Text Search tool that allows you to search only the currently opened document but also multiple documents at once. This tool allows you to see the results of the search in context with the text around the result to help locate the section of the document with the correct text. You can also use the Advanced Search Actions to add text markups or redactions to all the search results.

How to use Advanced Search

Open the document that you wish to search
Open the quick search popup by going to Home Tab > Search on the toolbar or press Ctrl + Shift + F (⌘ + Shift + F on Mac).
Enter the text to search in the text field and select any additional options, then press the Enter key or click on the Search button. All occurrences of the text in the document will appear in the occurrences list.

To navigate through the results:

Use the Up arrow key (previous) and Down arrow key (next).
Click on the Previous Occurrence or Next Occurrence buttons.
Click on the result with the mouse

Note: When navigating the search results for multiple documents, highlighting or selecting another document will open it in a new PDF Studio window.

Advanced Search Options

Search: Allows you to select where to search for the desired text. Choose from one of the following options

Current Document: searches only the currently opened and active document.
All Open Documents: searches all documents currently opened in PDF Studio
Directory: searches all PDF documents within a selected directory. You can type the destination manually or click on the "..." button to open a directory chooser to set the destination folder. Check the "Include Subfolders" option to include any documents found in any folders within the selected directory.
Recent Documents: searches all documents in the Recent File History list

Word or Phrase: Enter the text you wish to search for

Case-Sensitive: If checked, searching for the string "The" will not return the same results as searching for the string "the".

Whole words only: If checked, searching for "the" will not return occurrences of "they". But when this option is left unchecked, all occurrences of "they" will appear in the occurrence list.

File Name: If checked, the search will include PDF documents with the text in the file name

Metadata: If checked, the search will include the Metadata found in Document Properties of any PDF files

Include comments: If checked, the search will include text in annotation comments.

Include form fields: If checked, the search will include text in form fields. (this is on by default)

Include attachments: If checked, will search the text within attached PDF documents.

Use regular expression: Allows you to user a regular expression to perform more advanced search queries

Examples:

US phone number: ((\(\d{3}\)?)|(\d{3}-))?\d{3}-\d{4}
US Social Security number: \d{3}-\d{2}-\d{4}
Email address: [\w-]+@([\w-]+\.)+[\w-]+
For more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regex

Result Navigation

Previous Occurrence: Navigates to the previous occurrence of the word in the document

Next Occurrence: Navigates to the next occurrence of the word in the document

Note: Pressing the "Enter" key will also continue to the next occurrence

Advanced Search Actions

Use the Actions options to apply markups or redactions to all the results found in the document.

Highlight Text - applies Text Highlight markups to the results

Cross Out Text - applies Cross Out text markups to the results

Underline Text - applies Underline text markups to the results

Squiggly Underline Text - applies Squiggly Underline text markups to the results

Create Bookmark - creates a Bookmark for each of the results found

Create Link - creates a Web Link for each of the results found using the selected options

Mark for Redaction - creates a Redaction Annotation for each for the results found

Note: This only applies the redaction annotations so that you can first review the redaction before Applying Redactions

Replace Text - replaces all instances of the text found with the new text you choose

Note: This will not reflow or change the layout of paragraphs. This tool is useful for small changes only.