Content searcher - txt doc pdf

[EchterStahlmann]

Hello,

Is it possible?
Or what free software can do it? (not the best question for this forum )

Cheers

[void]

Content searching is possible with Everything 1.4.

Please try the Advanced Search in Everything 1.4 to setup a content search:

• In Everything, from the Search menu, click Advanced Search.
• Change A word of phrase in the file to the content you would like to find.
• Combine with other filters for the best performance.
• For example:
  • change Extensions to: txt;doc;pdf to limit the search to txt, doc and pdf files.
  • Change the first Date modified field to: 1/1/2017 to limit the search to files modified this year.

[EchterStahlmann]

Thanks!
so do you think that comparison is outdated?

[void]

Everything
Find text in documents (PDF/DOC/TXT): Yes
Find all file types: Yes
Search file attributes/properties: attributes:Yes, some properties (image dimensions/id3 tags): Yes
Advanced boolean searches: Yes
Regular expression support: Yes
Maintains separate search index (perforamance hit): No
Instant search: Yes
Preview search results: Yes
Search Virtual folders (non-filesystem): No (coming in Everything 1.5)
Find photos by map location: No
Compare file attributes: No, maybe: attribdupe:
Find documents in deep folders (path>260 characters): Yes

[EchterStahlmann]

Everything
Find text in documents (PDF/DOC/TXT): Yes
Find all file types: Yes
Search file attributes/properties: attributes:Yes, some properties (image dimensions/id3 tags): Yes
Advanced boolean searches: Yes
Regular expression support: Yes
Maintains separate search index (perforamance hit): No
Instant search: Yes
Preview search results: Yes
Search Virtual folders (non-filesystem): No (coming in Everything 1.5)
Find photos by map location: No
Compare file attributes: No, maybe: attribdupe:
Find documents in deep folders (path>260 characters): Yes

Good for you!
You could put this updated info on your site
Competition can feel fear

[MikeKaye]

I would like to search 8-bit ASCII content for specified software source file types. Specifically file types: asm s inc c cpp h hpp java class html. No point in indexing all by default. Users can specify which types to index.

I have a few odd file types such as msa (asm backwards) which I use as prototype files with template substitution.

Searching within doc and docx files would be a plus.

[void]

Please try making a custom filter:

• In Everything, from the Search menu, click Add to Filter....
• Change Name to: src
• Change the search to: ext:asm;s;inc;c;cpp;h;hpp;java;class;html;msa
• Change macro to: src
• Click OK.

ext: will search for files with the matching extension.

Now when you search for src: it will instead search for: ext:asm;s;inc;c;cpp;h;hpp;java;class;html;msa

For example, to search the contents of all these files with matching extension for the text SomeFunctionName, search for:
src: content:SomeFunctionName

You could do the same for doc and docx, where there is already a doc: macro which will search for doc and docx files.

combine content: with other search functions for the best performance.
Such as dm:thisyear size:<1MB d:\dev\

[rSalois]

Quite unsure about the pdf extension certainly. If there's no such a big deal about searching through the txt files and word as well, pdf requires an ocr feature, which is more complicated and most of the services are usually putting it in as a "pro" feature, like here for example https://edit-pdf.pdffiller.com/ despite it's able on a free trial, its options are quite restricted nevertheless

[horst.epp]

Quite unsure about the pdf extension certainly. If there's no such a big deal about searching through the txt files and word as well, pdf requires an ocr feature, which is more complicated and most of the services are usually putting it in as a "pro" feature, like here for example https://edit-pdf.pdffiller.com/ despite it's able on a free trial, its options are quite restricted nevertheless

There are no problems to search PDF content with Windows search indexer which uses iFilter to get the pdf content.
There are free iFilters available which works fine eg.
SumatraPDF https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/prerelease.html
TET PDF IFilter https://www.pdflib.com/products/tet-pdf-ifilter/

[NotNull]

PDF's can be text documents, images (scan2pdf, for example) or a combination of both (digital magazines).
Everything uses iFilters to read the contents of files (like @horst.epp already mentioned. AFAIK, there is no iFilter to scan images for text.
Luckily, the vast majority of PDF files out there are text based. (a quick way to test that, is to select some text in your PDF viewer; you can't do that with an image)

@horst.epp: Thank you for your TET PDF IFilter suggestion. Sounds very promising. Certainly going to try it out. Do you have personal experience with it?

[horst.epp]

PDF's can be text documents, images (scan2pdf, for example) or a combination of both (digital magazines).
Everything uses iFilters to read the contents of files (like @horst.epp already mentioned. AFAIK, there is no iFilter to scan images for text.
Luckily, the vast majority of PDF files out there are text based. (a quick way to test that, is to select some text in your PDF viewer; you can't do that with an image)

@horst.epp: Thank you for your TET PDF IFilter suggestion. Sounds very promising. Certainly going to try it out. Do you have personal experience with it?

Yes, I run it since since 4 months now under Windows 10 x64 without problems.
I havily depend on searching PDFs.
My own scanned PDF files are always OCR generated or printed the right way.
Even image based content PDFs can often be made searchable
with the ReadIris software from my HP scanner.

[NotNull]

Thanks for sharing!

[jamie.burns1286]

Hi, a bit late to the party, but hopefully I can help other people in this predicament, so please forgive my necrobump. ^_^

A few months ago, in my search for a decent-ish PDF app, I stumbled across an app named PDF Extra: https://pdfextra.com/ The good news is that it also has a free version, which includes a pretty handy viewer mode and simple search options. It too can't, however, look through scanned copies of files or images in general. I did write them a suggestion about that though and they said they're working on a solution, so that's cool.

If you're hell-bent on looking through scanned files, though, PDF Pro does a pretty good job of making such files searchable through OCR technology. You can read more about it here: https://pdfpro.com/blog/guides/how-to-m ... earchable/

Hope this helps others like me who have been initially frustrated with the inability to search scanned PDFs! Also, a big shout out to the creator of Everything (the reason why I've registered in the first place) – you really do make finding things dead simple. The app is also snappy as heck and pretty straightforward to use, unlike some programs out there (anyone who has ever used a DAW, particularly Reaper, knows what I'm talking about!).