Search for text inside a PDF — one file or hundreds at once
Drop your PDFs below, type a word or phrase, and press Search. You will get every match with its page number and a snippet of surrounding text. Unlike the Ctrl+F box in a PDF viewer, this searches across all the files you add at the same time — and nothing is ever uploaded.
🔒 Your files are read directly in this browser tab using pdf.js. Nothing is uploaded to any server.
How it works
When you add a file, the tool reads its raw bytes locally and uses Mozilla's open-source pdf.js engine to pull the text layer out of every page. Your search term is compiled into a pattern (plain text by default, or a regular expression if you choose) and run against each page. Every hit is listed under the file it came from, labelled with its page number, so you can open that document and jump straight to the right place.
Because all of this happens in your browser, the speed depends on your own device and the size of the files rather than an internet connection. A short statement scans instantly; a few hundred pages may take a couple of seconds.
When this beats Ctrl+F
- Many files at once. Searching a folder of invoices, lecture notes or contracts for one keyword is a single action here, not opening forty files one by one.
- Privacy. Confidential documents stay on your machine, so you are not handing them to an unknown website.
- Context. You see the sentence around each match and its page number, instead of a blinking cursor.
Tips for better results
If you expect a match but get none, try a shorter or more distinctive part of the phrase — line breaks and spacing inside PDFs sometimes split words in ways you would not expect. For numbers and reference codes, the Regex option is powerful: PO[-\s]?\d{4,} finds purchase-order numbers whether or not they contain a dash or space. To learn the details, read our guide to searching text inside PDFs, or see how this approach compares with desktop apps and online converters.
Frequently asked questions
Can I search for text across multiple PDF files at once?
Yes. Add as many PDFs as you like and run one search. Each file is scanned page by page and the results are grouped by file, with the page number shown next to every match. This is the main thing your browser's built-in Ctrl+F cannot do — it only searches the single document currently open.
Are my PDF files uploaded anywhere?
No. The tool uses the pdf.js library to read each file directly inside your browser tab. The bytes of your document are never sent to a server, which makes it safe for contracts, statements, medical records and other private files.
Why can't the tool find text that I can clearly see in the PDF?
Most likely the PDF is a scanned image rather than real text. A scan is a picture of a page, so there are no characters to search until optical character recognition (OCR) has been run on it. If selecting text with your mouse in a normal PDF viewer does not work, this tool cannot find it either.
Does it work on my phone?
Yes. It runs in any modern mobile or desktop browser. Large files take longer on a phone because all the work happens on your device, but there is no size limit imposed by a server.
Can I use a regular expression or match whole words only?
Yes. Tick “Whole word” to avoid matching inside larger words, “Match case” for case-sensitive search, or “Regex” to enter a full regular expression such as invoice-\d+ for patterns.