[Solved] Searching the contents of PDFs in XYplorer Free

[Dan]

Hi:

I have downloaded and tried XYplorer Free Portable under Windows 7 (64-bit) and it has a lot of useful functionality. However, one function it doesn't seem to have natively is the ability to search the text of PDFs. Am I mistaken about this? If not, it seems like I need to install 32-bit IFilters.

The XYplorer PDF Help Guide states the following:

"Match textual data in textual documents (DOC, PDF, TXT etc), and the meta data of media and image files. Textual/meta data from complex documents is only retrievable if supported by installed 32-bit IFilters" (page 311).

"Content search supports IFilters. IFilters are Windows plugins used to extract pure text from complex file types like DOC, DOCX, ODT, PDF.... XYplorer needs the 32-bit version of IFilters installed" (page 312).

I see a couple of threads on PDFs and IFilters:
==> Searching contents in PDF files (http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/viewtopic. ... ers#p67785).
==> IFilters support (http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/viewtopic. ... ers#p93185).

However, neither thread seems to provide advice on installing these 32-bit IFilters and configuring XYplorer Free to use them to search the text of PDFs.

Can anyone help?

Thanks.

PS: I see on the Adobe website plenty about 64-bit Ifilters, but not very much on 32-bit ones, though apparently, a 32-bit PDF iFilter is bundled with Adobe Acrobat® 11 as well as the free Adobe Reader® 11 software (http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/ ... ftpID=5542).

[highend]

Yes, you need the ifilter for .pdfs.

You don't have to install the Acrobat Reader for it

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/ ... ftpID=2611

Download the ifilter60.exe file from there, install it, close XY, start it, search for content in your pdfs.

There should be any additional configuration steps, I've just tried it with the current free portable edition on a x64 OS, worked fine (and there are no extra ifilters installed (and there is no office on that machine))

[Dan]

Hi highend:

Thanks for the quick reply and the useful advice. I followed that advice, downloading the ifilter60.exe file and installing it, then started up XYplorer Free Portable, and was indeed able to find content in my PDFs. (No further configuration steps were needed.)

I'll see if I can edit the subject line of my initial message to say that my problem has been solved.

[PeterH]

I just had a look: Tracker Software says that they include ifilter with PDF-XChange Viewer, too.

Didn't find any info to bitness...

[Memyself]

Is it possible to read pdf text fields from xyplorer?

[highend]

In general, no.

Depending on what fields, maybe pdfinfo from http://www.xpdfreader.com/index.html
would be an option...