Search in multiple PDFs?

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Horst
Posts: 1085
Joined: 24 Jan 2021 12:27
Location: Germany

Re: Search in multiple PDFs?

Post by Horst »

You can use the SearchFilterView from Nirsoft to see what IFilters you have installed.
It also allows you to change the assigments on the fly.
https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/search_filter_view.html
Windows 11 Home x64 Version 23H2 (OS Build 22631.3374)
Portable XYplorer (actual version, including betas)
Everything 1.5.0.1371a (x64), Everything Toolbar 1.3.2, Listary Pro 6.3.0.69

highend
Posts: 13274
Joined: 06 Feb 2011 00:33

Re: Search in multiple PDFs?

Post by highend »

Btw, this is the one in W 10 20H2:

Code: Select all

Windows.Data.Pdf.dll	Reader Search Handler	PDF WinRT APIs	10.0.19041.1
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coolai
Posts: 11
Joined: 27 Feb 2019 07:28

Re: Search in multiple PDFs?

Post by coolai »

Filters.PNG
Filters.PNG (86.84 KiB) Viewed 1004 times
Looks like I have two different Filters for PDF as far as I see?

highend
Posts: 13274
Joined: 06 Feb 2011 00:33

Re: Search in multiple PDFs?

Post by highend »

You have, correct.

Does it help if you tick
Configuration | Other | Shell Integration | 64-bit Windows | Fall back to IFilters of the other bitness

?
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coolai
Posts: 11
Joined: 27 Feb 2019 07:28

Re: Search in multiple PDFs?

Post by coolai »

It does not, indeed. Maybe I have to uninstall the non-Microsoft filter.

I don't have to change anything in the windows settings themselves do I?

highend
Posts: 13274
Joined: 06 Feb 2011 00:33

Re: Search in multiple PDFs?

Post by highend »

Open the control panel, type "index" in the upper right corner into the search field, select: "Indexing options" in the upcoming list of entries

Click the "Advanced" button

Click the "File types" tab

Which "Filter Description" do you have for the .pdf entry?

By default it is the "Reader Search Handler"

If it's not you could try to uninstall your pdf tool and then check that entry again...

This link has an explanation of how the registry settings must be set to activate the Windows default filter...
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/probl ... -ibase-90x
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coolai
Posts: 11
Joined: 27 Feb 2019 07:28

Re: Search in multiple PDFs?

Post by coolai »

Index.PNG
Index.PNG (2.72 KiB) Viewed 992 times
It's the other installed filter as suspected. Strangely though it is graid out, I can't click it. I'll uninstall the filter and try again.

Edit: uninstalled, still nothing. I checked SearchFilterView and the "Reader Search Handler" shows no extensions underneath. I'll add PDF manually, maybe it'll help.

Edit2: now it seems to be working! It was searching the wrong location, not any of the tabs currently open but something completely different. When resetting the filters it doesn't reset the "location" tab in which it searches, any way to do that? Is there a real "search" button, or is CTRL+F the best way?
Last edited by coolai on 21 Apr 2021 14:06, edited 1 time in total.

Horst
Posts: 1085
Joined: 24 Jan 2021 12:27
Location: Germany

Re: Search in multiple PDFs?

Post by Horst »

Look in the Windows Indexing settings to ensure that the TETPDFiFilter is set to "Index Properties and File Contents" for PDF.
I used this iFilter many years with no problems before I switched to SumatraPDF.
Windows 11 Home x64 Version 23H2 (OS Build 22631.3374)
Portable XYplorer (actual version, including betas)
Everything 1.5.0.1371a (x64), Everything Toolbar 1.3.2, Listary Pro 6.3.0.69

autocart
Posts: 1246
Joined: 26 Sep 2013 15:22

Re: Search in multiple PDFs?

Post by autocart »

Hi, sorry for being late to the party.

For me the pdf-content-search of XY has been unreliable from the very beginning. Every now and then it just does not find all pdfs (but only finds some of the ones containing the search string). Every now and then I give it another test drive. Just now I had that same problem again and thought I will finally mention this problem for the sake of other people, at least, which is why I now found this thread.

The good news, that have not been mentioned here so far, are that there is a free and good alternative software:
Agent Ransack https://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/ respectively FileLocator Lite
(Supposedly both are the same but still have a different name, download and installation file - don't ask me, why.)

There even is an "add-on" here in the forum to help with usage from within XY: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11197&hilit=agent+ransack
and many other mentions of it in other threads: search.php?st=0&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&keyw ... k&start=15

May you all enjoy your life, S.

admin
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Contact:

Re: Search in multiple PDFs?

Post by admin »

Send me a PDF-file that is not found but should be found. I can check what's going on...

autocart
Posts: 1246
Joined: 26 Sep 2013 15:22

Re: Search in multiple PDFs?

Post by autocart »

admin wrote: 20 May 2021 17:52 Send me a PDF-file that is not found but should be found. I can check what's going on...
Yea, well, I kind of appreciate the sentiment but I am not convinced that this would raise the trustworthyness of that feature for me to the same level as I feel Agent Ransack has it. Those programmers were able to get it to work properly, as it seems, without my test files. So, I would only start trusting the iFilter based content search of XY when it also works like Agent Ransack without me sending in test files.

Otherwise, if I did send in my test files - if it even could get fixed for these files - I would feel like that was a fix now for one problem in the algorithm but would not feel sure enough that there is not a more basic problem with the algorithm to begin with which could still lead to other files not being found anytime. Hope you understand. If not, it is also no problem for me, since I like using Agent Ransack. So, all is ok.

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