Learn to Use the Search Function in Your Pdf Files

It is very easy to look out for words and phrases in MS Word.

For PDF files which mean Portable Document Format files, it is not that easy. Finding certain portions of a PDF file is a little complicated. It becomes important to know how to find parts of the document effectively due to the wide usage of PDF files on numerous websites.

If we simply consider a particular photograph or snapshot, it is not possible to simply use a part of the picture. For example if it is a full size image of a person, and you want only the face of that person, you cannot simply copy and paste it elsewhere. That is not how it works. You can do that in MS Word. Just pick up the lines, phrases, words, whatever you need and put it anywhere you want easily.

There are three easy methods to find some textual content in a big PDF file.

The first one is quite simple. You can use the shortcut key Ctrl+F. On doing this, the Find dialog box will open up. There will be a text box provided in the find dialog box. You enter the text you want to search for in the document.

Second method is through the edit tab on the top. Once you will click on the edit tab, choose the find command from the dropdown and you see the Find dialog box.

The third method is to directly click on the find icon from the tool bar on the top of the document. The icon is an image of binoculars. Look for this image and you will find the icon.

There are four items in the find dialog box; Find What text box, Find Again button, Cancel button Search options.

The find what text box is used to enter the text that you are looking for. To go the next location of the text you have searched for in the document, you can press the find again button. As the name says, the cancel button will stop the search and close the find dialog box.

There are many preferences you can select through the search options like if you would like the whole phrase to be matched exactly or not.

There are also options like match case and ignore other characters etc. You also have the option of searching forward or backward from the current position of the cursor. You can choose multiple options at a time by checking the check boxes in front of the options. There are lot of applications that allow you to search textual content.