Question
: I have a searchable PDF file containing a particular text string, but Windows Explorer search does not find that string of text. How do I fix this?
Answer : Full text PDF's and other searchable PDF file types are not natively searchable by the default Windows Explorer search option. However, there is a way to configure Windows to index and search PDF files by installing a separate Adobe utility.
Step 1
Open Control Panel and select Indexing Options (You may need to switch the view to Small or Large Icons rather than Category).
Click the Advanced button and go to the File Types tab.
Scroll down to 'PDF' under the Extension column. If the Filter Description value for that row is set to "PDF Filter", you can skip to Step 3. Otherwise, go to Step 2.
Step 2
Install one of the following programs, depending on your Windows version:
Under the File Types tab of the Advanced Options window of Indexing Options you opened from the Control Panel in Step 1, select the row for PDF and make sure that the "Index Properties and File Contents" bullet point is selected.
Click OK to close the Advanced Options window.
Step 4
In the Indexing Options window, make sure that the folders that you would like PDF files to be searchable under are listed under the Included Locations tab.
If they are not, click the Modify button to add them.
Note: It may take some time for windows to finish indexing all of your files. You can check the progress at the top of the Indexing Options window at any time.
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