Jump to content

Is PDF search Mac/IOS only?


Recommended Posts

I've been premium for 4 years or so and have always used Foxit Phantom PDF to search my PDF files because I've never been able to get EN to do it. I put a PDF in a note (as an attachment) and do a sync. I then select "All Notes" and enter a term I know is in the PDF (and nowhere else) but EN always comes back and tells me it was not found.

That's why I had to buy Foxit.

People keep talking about searching PDFs but I've never been able to do that. Is this a Mac thing?

 

Link to comment
1 minute ago, DTLow said:

PDF search is working for me on Web and iPad

That's what I mean.

I'm on Windows and PDF search has never worked for me and I'm wondering why I've been spending the money for "Premium" when it seems that this search is Mac only.

I've always kept my PDF files in a folder on my PC and not in EN, just so I could point Foxit at the folder and tell it to find all the PDFs with a given term. People keep talking about searching them with EN but attaching them to a note doesn't seem to make them "searchable" in a Windows environment.

These are real PDF files consisting of text, not the "image in a PDF" type. There's no need for OCR as these are already text.

Link to comment
  • Level 5*
1 hour ago, OrbWeaver said:

I'm on Windows and PDF search has never worked for me and I'm wondering why I've been spending the money for "Premium" when it seems that this search is Mac only.

Search of PDFs within Windows desktop works fine for me.  Some issues with EN Web not providing complete results.

There is a generic issue wherein PDFs that contain renderable text are not searchable.  Typically these are downloaded PDFs.  Not all downloadable PDFs contain renderable text.  I typically see it with statements or bills where the company has a column overlay or the like built into their process. 

PITA, and the fix can be another PITA, print to PDF and then OCR that output.  Unless someone has a better way.  Not much to do with EN though.

Link to comment
1 hour ago, CalS said:

There is a generic issue wherein PDFs that contain renderable text are not searchable

The vast majority of these PDF files are created via "Print to PDF" from Firefox using the Foxit Phantom PDF driver (not the Foxit Reader printer driver). This generates PDF files where you can select text whereas using something like the Foxit Reader printer driver generates what appears to be an image in a PDF wrapper and text can't be selected.from within the document.. That is, with the former you can see a cursor while the latter there is no cursor.

To test I created a PDF which I can view and I can also highlight and copy the text.

I attached this to a note and then synced.

I can view the contents of the PDF on any device but when I search my notes for a specific word that I know is in the PDF there is nothing found. If I search the PDF from Foxit, the word is there.

It's only Evernote that can't search the PDF file. And it's never been able to search any PDF since I started using EN back in 2014. That's why I got Foxit.

Link to comment
  • Level 5*

Got me, sounds like the PDFs aren't OCRd in EN.  I've been adding PDFs as a part of getting paperless for some time, over 21k notes (scanned, printed to PDF or downloaded).  And other than the renderable text bork things seem to be working fine.  For example, highlight and copy an account number from a PDF and use it as a search term, and all other notes for that account appear.

As a test, select one of the notes wherein EN doesn't find the text in the PDF.  Hold the Ctrl key and press Help.  Select Fix Selected Notes.  After it's done, should be quick, try the search again.  If EN now finds the text then the PDF wasn't OCR'd from ENs perspective, whatever that means.  Should have been for sure. 

There was some SNAFU with PDFs recently, but not as far back as 2014.  

Link to comment
  • Level 5*
2 hours ago, OrbWeaver said:

when I search my notes for a specific word that I know is in the PDF there is nothing found. 

Can you share the pdf with us so we can test it?

You should follow up with Evernote Support at https://www.evernote.com/SupportLogin.action
There is clearly an issue and you have the pdfs as proof.

Link to comment
1 hour ago, CalS said:

sounds like the PDFs aren't OCRd in EN

They are not images so OCR should not be necessary. That would be like OCRing a text document from Notepad.

Anyway, I did the Ctrl-Help/Fix Note bit and the result is the same. I then opened the PDF and copied a paragraph from there into a new note. EN instantly locates the required word but not in the PDF, just in the copied text.

The PDF in question is a conversion from an EPUB anthology. I grabbed one paragraph, pasted it into Windows Notepad, printed to PDF and EN can't find the term I search for. It's a single paragraph and the search term I'm looking for is the very first word in the paragraph.

Bonus points to whomever identifies the author...

Notepad.pdf

Link to comment
  • Level 5*
1 hour ago, OrbWeaver said:

The PDF in question is a conversion from an EPUB anthology. I grabbed one paragraph, pasted it into Windows Notepad, printed to PDF and EN can't find the term I search for. It's a single paragraph and the search term I'm looking for is the very first word in the paragraph.

Bonus points to whomever identifies the author...

Notepad.pdf

Search works for me on the Web when I inserted the pdf via my Mac

At first, search fails for me on the Web when I inserted the pdf via the Web
There was a delay; I'm guessing for the text to be extracted and indexed
Search is now ok on the web

I got the author, cheating with Google

Link to comment
2 hours ago, DTLow said:

Search is now ok on the web

Switching to a Mac is not an option for me. I started with an Apple 2 but I've been with Billy G. since Dos 1.0 and have no intention of switching now. Jumping to the web every time I want to do a search would be a real pain in the nether region so that's probably not going to happen either.

I guess I'll stick to leaving all my PDF files in s folder in the PC and search with Foxit. I don't often need to search from a mobile but I can duplicate the files on the Surface Pro for those rare occasions. There's only a few thousand.

Won't be needing that "Premium" level any more either. First I discovered business card scanning didn't work (tried that a few years ago) and now I discover PDF searching doesn't work. Sure glad I never upgraded my other account to "Premium."

But, if I was a user of those little smiley-faced thingies I'd forget about the other flaws. I should get my priorities straight.

I should probably have picked a more obscure author as well. ;)

 

 

Link to comment
  • Level 5*
On 12/31/2018 at 4:58 PM, OrbWeaver said:

They are not images so OCR should not be necessary.

Don't know what to tell you.  I printed a text note to a PDF and imported into a local notebook (to prevent EN from OCRing).  EN does not find the note when I search for text in the PDF.  After I OCR the note, the same search returns the note.

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...

i just had a similar issue.  I could search on the Mac desk top but nothing was coming up o the phone or iPad.  Found this Evernote PDF Search Help page.  I emptied my trash, hit the sync button and BOOM.  PDF were searchable on all platforms.  There are A LOT of tips and steps so I got lucky and that one worked for me.  Ive had EN since 2012 and never emptied the trash...  Recently started using it again and has it ever (no pun intended) save me at work!  Thanks Evernote and hope this may be a step towards a solution for you!

 

MMM

Link to comment

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...