(Archived) Search inside MS Office documents

[Jcvicinanza 0]

Hello,

Is there any way to search inside of MS Word and PPT documents without first converting them to PDF?

Many thanks for you help,

Regards,

Jason

[Wern 246]

If you just copy the text of a WORD file into a note, then of course it is searchable with EN.

But if you just save a Word file to EN, then EN stores the file "as is" with no search capabilities.

As you write, you can convert to pdf or just copy text into a note, to make it searchable.

Wern

[Jcvicinanza 0]

Thank you.

It's obvious that one can search a doc if it is in text format or PDF. That was not exactly my question.

Converting any document from it's native format to text or PDF is a no-go, at least for me, I have 100s of such documents.

Hopefully someday Evernote will provide the ability to search MS Office docs in their native format... or at least provide a work around which would auto convert to PDF upon adding the Word/PPT to the Evernote notebook.

[Wern 246]

Your request is probably not high in the list of EN priorities. Remember, there are hundreds (if not more) proposals out there from people who want their favorite toy to be implemented as soon as possible. EN has to make difficult choices in setting priorities (cross platform compatibility, ease of use, resources, requests, viability and many others).

Wern

[jbenson2 2,147]

Here is an answer from Dave Engberg at Evernote, a couple years ago, on why Evernote does not search other file formats.

by

engberg

on Wed Sep 23, 2009 11:53 am

Evernote currently processes the text contents of PDF documents, and searches for words within images (JPEG, PNG, GIF).

We don't have code in each of our clients to extract searchable text from other file formats. This is something that we would be interested to do in the future, but it's a pretty big project, even if limited to just MS Office, since there are at least a dozen different file formats involved in "Office" over the years, and each would require special code to separate "text" from "other stuff" in the document.

[Wern 246]

Jben,

I am always wondering how in the world you (or B&F) are digging up these text snippets. You must have a great database of collected EN forum posts. Wow! Looks like you are working with Evernote!

Wern

[gazumped 11,652]

If I'm saving a file as an attachment rather than an indexable document, and pretty often when I save an image file, I'll add a quick description of what's in the file that runs anywhere from a one-line header (if that's not already the title of the note anyway) to an exec summary paragraph or page, to a full copy of the document. It's a matter of moments to highlight some/all - copy - paste while the original file is open, and it means I have full search capability as well as being able to open the document again for editing if necessary. If you're dealing with published documents however there is a distinct advantage to PDFing the file - it is an archive format and means you preserve the original document as issued, and you can still cut and paste paragraphs if you need to boiler-plate another similar document sometime.

If I don't get around to this at the time of saving the file to Evernote, it's something that I look for in tidying and maintaining the database around day to day searches.

[jbenson2 2,147]

Jben,

I am always wondering how in the world you (or B&F) are digging up these text snippets. You must have a great database of collected EN forum posts. Wow! Looks like you are working with Evernote!

Wern

I like to think that Evernote is working for me.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Jben,

I am always wondering how in the world you (or B&F) are digging up these text snippets. You must have a great database of collected EN forum posts. Wow! Looks like you are working with Evernote!

I actually have a notebook for Evernote tips & tricks. I screen cap the post & add the URL. It quickly evolved into a notebook that also holds posts by the EN staff that I figure will be helpful in answering board questions. (I prefer to quote actual EN staff whenever possible, since that often adds more credibility, IMO.) Alas, after migrating to the new board, none of the URLs work (NBD, b/c I just search for the post based upon the text in the screen cap I have.) But often more importantly, is that some of the posts were in the sections for versions that are no longer supported (IE Windows 3.1 or Windows 3.5) and those sections didn't get migrated to the new board. (Understandably so.)

So in the sense of working "with" Evernote (the app), yes, I do! But if you mean am I an employee/principal/investor in EN, no. (As my sig indicates.) Nor do I get any kind of compensation from them. The only thing I did get is a couple of years of premium service in exchange for helping on the boards as an EE.

Well, unless you count the Ferrari in the garage...oops...did I say that out loud?

HOWEVER, I've already told my husband (also not affiliated with EN nor does he even use it), if/when EN has an IPO, I want in.

[Wern 246]

<<Well, unless you count the Ferrari in the garage...oops...did I say that out loud? <<

Oh, I was hoping they'd give you a spiffy German car!

[JamesCE 5]

I still think this ability would really increase peoples dependency

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I still think this ability would really increase peoples dependency

Probably so. But it seems EN has decided (at least for now) that it's not worth the trade off of engineer hours to do this initially & then to keep up with the various updates of MS docs.

[JamesCE 5]

I still think this ability would really increase peoples dependency

Probably so. But it seems EN has decided (at least for now) that it's not worth the trade off of engineer hours to do this initially & then to keep up with the various updates of MS docs.

True, and I totally understand that decision from a business perspective.

[heather 604]

This is something I personally keep bringing up in feature request meetings, along with document preview. It's something that is near and dear to my heart. Hopefully, someday, we'll have it. It's just a huge undertaking, as we need to develop a way for it to work multiplatform and not ruin the overall experience before we'll consider adding it, and we're not there yet.

[EdH 1,670]

So, now that this exists for premium users, does anyone know of the search syntax to not search within a document for a given search? I have a lot of files attached with tables in them with hundreds or even thousands of rows (item lists for example) and if I am looking for a note with the word "crayon" in it, I don't want every note that has an attachment with a product listing that has the word "crayon" to show up, I just want it where it is in the body of the note itself.

[jefito 5,589]

So, now that this exists for premium users, does anyone know of the search syntax to not search within a document for a given search? I have a lot of files attached with tables in them with hundreds or even thousands of rows (item lists for example) and if I am looking for a note with the word "crayon" in it, I don't want every note that has an attachment with a product listing that has the word "crayon" to show up, I just want it where it is in the body of the note itself.

Not so far as I know. See http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/36349-en-document-search-grammar-updates/ for similar question. No official response from Evernote yet.

[gazumped 11,652]

This is so new I haven't looked into it yet,  but you can list the notes with attachments using the application/<mimetype>,  so can presumably exclude those notes from your search the same way.  the problem arises if you have a keyword in a note which also has the keyword in an attachment.  There's no way to easily exclude keywords in attachments - which is exactly the same problem you face with PDF attachments.

 

I don't know if BitQwik may help with this - it's certainly a way to construct long search strings more easily...

[EdH 1,670]

I really hate it when new features are like this - totally ruins search for me in MANY work instances. I'd rather have NO Office document search capabilities on my account than this.