How To Search a PDF for Words or Phrases

Do you want to look for a specific word or phrase in a PDF file? Here, you’ll find tips on searching PDFs with a PDF reader or web browser.

How To Search a PDF Using a Browser

Leading internet browsers like Chrome, Safari, Edge, and Firefox also have search functions that can help you find specific words in your PDF documents. To do that, follow this step-by-step guide:

1. While using any browser, open your PDF file (right-click > Open with).
2. Depending on your operating system, press CTRL+F or CMD+F.
3. Alternatively, you can access the Find function in the menu bar.
4. Type and navigate between search results using the arrows next to the search box.
5. Click X or “Esc” to remove or hide the search bar.

How To Search a Scanned PDF

While any “normal” text you’ll find in a PDF is searchable text, that doesn’t apply to text appearing in an image. Because of that, you’ll need to follow a few extra steps to convert a scanned document into a searchable PDF.

Fortunately, this isn’t a difficult process—at least, not when you use Smallpdf’s PDF OCR tool. With the help of this advanced search option, Smallpdf users can convert PDF files containing text your search window can’t access into fully searchable documents.

PDF searching made easy

How To Search a PDF for Words Using a Browser

Your favorite internet browsers (Chrome, Safari, Edge, Firefox) all have search functions enabled. All you have to do is:

1. Using any browser, open a PDF document (right-click > Open with).
2. Press CTRL+F or CMD+F, depending on your operating system.
3. Alternatively, access the Find function in the menu bar.
4. Type and navigate between search results using the arrows next to the search box.
5. Click X or “Esc” to remove or hide the search bar.

We Make PDF Searching Easy

We’ve developed a free PDF reader that can perform basic functionalities, including the search within a PDF. This enables us to further ease working with PDF files. You can download and install your copy via the Smallpdf PDF Reader page. Then, follow the instructions as stated earlier in this article to search PDF files.

As stated, document searching is similar in pretty much any PDF reader. Regardless of whether you view your files using Smallpdf, Adobe Acrobat Reader, or Preview.

Tips

The dialog box is not case-sensitive, so you don’t have to worry about capitalizing the text you want to search for. The search function will still match any of the words you typed in for you.

The Smallpdf reader automatically detects bookmarks and displays them on the left-hand side. This helps you find what you’re looking for without even needing to use the search function. Millions of students, teachers, and business professionals have to go through textbooks and lengthy manuals every day and appreciate our PDF reader for this overview and the PDF search function.

How To Search a Scanned PDF

If the content is placed as an image within PDFs, you first have to convert the PDF file into an editable format, such as Word. For this, you can use our PDF Converter. Afterward, you can download the document and go through its content, just like we did before. Microsoft Word and Excel allow you to search for multiple phrases and even replace a word with another in your document with advanced searching.