How to Search for a Word or Phrase in a PDF for Free

In the following, you’ll find a variety of useful ways to search for words or phrases in a PDF, relying only on built-in tools in operating systems or common PDF readers.

Using a Web Browser (e.g., Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari)

Most modern browsers have a built-in PDF viewer.

Steps:

• Open the PDF file in your browser (drag and drop the PDF file into browser will do).
• Press Ctrl + F (Windows/Linux) or Cmd + F (Mac).
• Type the word or phrase to search.
• Use the arrows to navigate through matches.

Search in Scanned/Image-based PDF

If you find that you can’t search in a PDF, that means the PDF is a scanned copy or based off images.

In that case, you should use PDFgear’s free PDF converter to convert the scanned PDF to a editable/searchable Word document.

Steps:

• Get PDFgear, open it on your computer.
• Go to Convert from PDF > PDF to Word.
• Click Add File to add PDF.
• Tick on OCR, select the PDF language, and click Convert.
• Search for your word in the converted Word.

Using Adobe Acrobat Reader (Free version)

While it requires software installation, Acrobat Reader is a trusted PDF reader on many systems.

Steps:

• Open the PDF in Adobe Acrobat Reader.
• Press Ctrl + F / Cmd + F.
• Type your search term.
• For advanced search, use Shift + Ctrl + F (Shift + Cmd + F on Mac) to search across multiple PDFs or use more filters.

Preview App (macOS Only)

Preview is the default macOS PDF viewer.

Steps:

• Open the PDF in Preview.
• Press Cmd + F.
• Enter your search word or phrase.
• Click through the results in the sidebar.

Windows File Explorer (Search inside PDFs)

Windows can index PDF content if the appropriate IFilter is installed (often comes with Adobe Reader).

Steps:

• Enable content indexing for PDFs (usually automatic with Acrobat Reader).
• Use the search bar in File Explorer.
• Include content:"your phrase" to find files containing it.

Command Line (Linux/macOS/WSL)

For text-based PDFs, you can search via terminal:

• Using grep:

  pdftotext file.pdf - | grep "your phrase"
  

  (Requires poppler-utils, typically pre-installed or installable via package manager.)

• Using less for navigation:

  pdftotext file.pdf - | less
  

  Then press / to search within the content.

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