Search Text in a PDF
Upload a PDF and type a word or phrase to see every matching page with the result highlighted.
Drag and drop a PDF file here
or
Files are processed in your browser and are not uploaded to our servers.
When to use Search PDF
Use this to quickly find a clause, name, or figure inside a long PDF — a contract, a report, a manual — without opening it in a separate reader. If the document is a scan with no selectable text, run OCR first (see below).
How to Search Text in a PDF
- Select a PDF.
- Type the word or phrase you're looking for.
- Step through the matching pages using next/previous.
- Jump to any result to view it in context.
What this tool changes
- Nothing — search only reads the document to build a temporary, local text index.
What it preserves
- The entire original document, unmodified.
Good to know
- Search only works on PDFs with actual selectable text. Scanned documents need OCR first.
- Text extraction order from the PDF can occasionally be imperfect, especially with complex layouts.
Frequently asked questions
- Why does search return no results on my scanned document?
- Scanned pages are images, not text. Use the OCR PDF tool first to recognize text, then search.
- Is my search text sent anywhere?
- No. Extraction and search both run locally in your browser.
- Does searching modify my PDF in any way?
- No. Search only reads the document in memory to build a temporary index — it never writes anything back to the file.