About search options

This topic explains single or multiple word searches, but not searches by patterns or masks (custom patterns).

You can refine your search with basic and advanced options.

Basic search options

Basic search options appear at the bottom of the Search floating window.

  • Match whole word only: Select this check box if the search text you specify must be a self-standing word. For instance, if you are looking for the word is but want to filter out words such as list, mistake or rediscovered (all containing the letter combination i+s), selecting this check box will give you the correct results.

    Match whole word only diagram

  • Match case: Use this setting if capitalization is important. If you select only this check box, but not Match whole word only, the search will return the correctly capitalized words. For example, if you specify Apr as the Search Phrase, the search will find all occurrences of the word April, but none for the word apron.

    Match case diagram

    Suppose you have a PDF with one occurrence of the word Tropical capitalized. If you select Match whole word only but leave Match case unselected, the Search Phrases Tropical, tropical or any miscapitalized versions of the same word such as TROPICAL or tRopical will return the correct result. However, no word segments (even if capitalized correctly, such as Trop) will return any search results.
    Match whole word only, without Match case diagram

    If you select both check boxes, only the Search Phrase Tropical will return the correct result. Use this setting if you are interested in only the given word (and not in any of its affixed variants) and you are sure that there are no misspelled occurrences of it.

  • Include Comments: Select this check box to search comments as well as the text content of your PDF.

  • Include Bookmarks: Select this check box to search bookmarks as well as the text content of your PDF.

Advanced search options

You can narrow the search, using document properties (author, title, subject, keywords, etc.) when performing a folder search for single or multiple words.

Click Advanced and define values for the properties in the Additional Criteria list near the bottom of the Search dialog box.

Narrowing the search means that the program will make a full-text search for a given phrase only in the documents containing properties with values given in the criteria list. The list has the following buttons and headers.

  • New Criteria: Click this link to add a new empty item to the list. Specify a criteria for searching by providing Key, Operation and Value in the new item.

  • Key: Select from Author, Title, Subject, Keywords, Application, Producer, Created Date or Modified Date in the drop-down list.

    Note Select <Delete> to remove the item from the criteria list.

  • Operation: For a date-type key, you can select any of the following: Is Before, Equal To, Not Equal To, or Is After. For all other keys, you can select between Includes and Excludes.

  • Value: Type in or select a value.

    Note For most key types (not for dates), you can specify several values to be included or excluded.