(Archived) Search within PDFs in local notebooks

[chris___ 0]

Hi there,

I'm currently a free user of Evernote and I'd love to go premium. But I want to make sure, that a special use case is possible with the pro version:

Let's suggest I'm using the Windows client and I'm adding a PDF to a local notebook.

Now I search my Evernote on the client for a special phrase that's also contained in this PDF.

E.g. if I search for the word "hello" and it exists on page 5 of the PDF - will the search result show page no 5 or will it just show the usual PDF preview (page 1)?

I really need that functionality, so it would be great if anyone can share his experiences with me.

Thanks,

Chris

[engberg 89]

The current Windows client does not highlight search results within the inline PDF preview. You would need to open the PDF (e.g. double-click) in your preferred PDF viewer to search, highlight, copy, paste, etc.

[chris___ 0]

Is anything like this planned in the near future e.g. with evernote 3.5?

Or are there any suggestions for other apps that are capable to do this, so I can use them in combination with evernote?

[engberg 89]

We'd need to license and integrate a more advanced (expensive) PDF solution than the one we're currently using within the Windows client, so we haven't done this yet. On the Mac, we get this for free, since OS X includes PDF capabilities in the operating system, but we have to do our own thing on Windows, so haven't been able to offer all of the PDF features we'd like there.

So it's something we'd like to improve in the future, but isn't part of the 3.5 launch.

[kent7854 0]

For what's it's worth I would love to see this same feature implemented within Evernote. If was a requirement of the pro version that would be fine.

I also do searches for topics that are in PDFs that could be 10's (if not 100's) of pages and so having it jump to the first instance of the PDF in the solution view would be a big help.

[Supernova 0]

agreed, i would be happy to pay for a pro version of the evernote client or buy a plugin to get this feature on windows.

meantime i have to get that very ppc old mac mini out of storage and try that.

[Supernova 0]

meantime i have to get that very ppc old mac mini out of storage and try that.

Dam seems my mac which is newer than this windows pc (that runs evernote) needs a newer version of osx and the latest isn't compatible with my hardware

back in storage, i hate the cost apple.

[Supernova 0]

will i get full pdf search if i buy a copy (if i can find it of) of osx 10.5 for G4/G5?

[Jonathan 1]

Another vote for this feature. I found this thread while searching to see how to do this. I am disappointed to find that it is not possible.

This is especially troubling for image PDFs. As you say, with text PDFs, one can use Acrobat to search.

[engberg 89]

If your PDF is text-based (e.g. if you can select text within Acrobat), then you can search it within any Local notebook in Evernote.

If your PDF is a scanned document with no OCR content, then you can't search it within Evernote in a Local notebook because we do not include a full OCR system in the downloadable Windows client.

If you purchase your own OCR software for your PC, you can scan and OCR your own documents. If you add these OCR PDFs into a Local notebook within Evernote, then you can search for those documents like any other searchable PDF.

[Jonathan 1]

I get that. The frustration is that you are doing OCR -- as shown by the fact that you can identify the PDF as containing the text string -- but cannot highlight the text in the PDF in the way you can for a JPEG. It sounds as if this is an issue of where to put your resources in rolling out new features. I was putting in a vote for adding this feature.

[engberg 89]

Yes, the Windows client does not yet highlight search matches within PDFs. (This doesn't have anything to do with Local vs. Synchronized or Premium vs. Free, of course.)

[glenda420 0]

I just upgraded to Premium specifically for the search-on-PDF feature. I have hundreds (thousands?) of pages of recipes I have begun scanning and emailing to Evernote so I can search for specific recipes among them. I scan in batches, so there are up to 50 pages of unrelated pages in a batch. I am dismayed that I can't pinpoint a recipe within a 50-page PDF doc. When I open the PDF that Evernote finds, it opens through Safari not Acrobat, so I still can't search! How can I overcome this? My scanner software does not do OCR. Thank you for your help.

[engberg 89]

If you right-click on the PDF, you can choose which application to use to view that PDF.

[drJock 0]

I agree, the ability to immediately find text string location in PDFs within Evernote (and select PDF text) would make me go premium.

If some more advanced PDF abilities were added then an 'evernote print driver' could be developed whereby any application with a print function could print its output directly to evernote (evernote would appear as a printer).

In addition to giving capability for non-supported software to output to evernote, this would also get round the decidedly variable quality of 'clip to evernote' for websites - almost all websites can currently be printed to a text searchable PDF that is much closer to the original than the current 'clip to evernote' capability.

[mrjoeboo 0]

I get that. The frustration is that you are doing OCR -- as shown by the fact that you can identify the PDF as containing the text string -- but cannot highlight the text in the PDF in the way you can for a JPEG. It sounds as if this is an issue of where to put your resources in rolling out new features. I was putting in a vote for adding this feature.

Has this feature been added yet? I have tons of docs I am scanning in as PDFs but when trying to highlight and copy the text I am unable to do so. I would like to use Evernote alot more, but I keep running into small hurdles. Anyone else have this issue or have workarounds?

Thanks.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I get that. The frustration is that you are doing OCR -- as shown by the fact that you can identify the PDF as containing the text string -- but cannot highlight the text in the PDF in the way you can for a JPEG. It sounds as if this is an issue of where to put your resources in rolling out new features. I was putting in a vote for adding this feature.

Has this feature been added yet? I have tons of docs I am scanning in as PDFs but when trying to highlight and copy the text I am unable to do so. I would like to use Evernote alot more, but I keep running into small hurdles. Anyone else have this issue or have workarounds?

I'm not sure what you're referring to. The highlighting of text in images is simply to pinpoint where the found word is. There is no OCR that you can copy & paste elsewhere. If you're referring to highlighting in PDFs to pinpoint where the found word is:

The current Windows client does not highlight search results within the inline PDF preview. You would need to open the PDF (e.g. double-click) in your preferred PDF viewer to search, highlight, copy, paste, etc.

OTOH, if you want to copy/paste text from a PDF:

viewtopic.php?f=53&t=17440&p=70236&hilit=pdf+searchable#p70236

Please note that if you're trying to OCR handwriting by using EN, you will probably be less than thrilled. EN's focus is saving, organizing & retrieving information, not OCR. You may have better results buying your own OCR software.

viewtopic.php?f=30&t=17690&p=73173&hilit=handwriting#p73173

viewtopic.php?f=30&t=17758&p=71969&hilit=handwriting#p71969