Can Spotlight search for text inside documents?
I just lost a vital email -- detailed instructions for something I want to do, from a friend. And I don't know where I put it (overlapping possibilities exist within my filing structure).
SHHHH: Windows used to let me search for specific text, inside documents, not just file or folder titles. Can I do that in OSX.8.2?
Use the Find command or its shortcut:
to get here:
and then change the dropdown for Kind to Contains:
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Spotlight search for text messages not working
After upgrading to ios8, I discovered that the spotlight search for text messages only "sees" my last two texts but not any of the others I have on my phone. These are all active conversations, not deleted messages. Any ideas how to fix? Thanks.
I Fixed mine by going to setting->General->Sptolight and unchecking "messages", exiting the function then returning and rechecking "messages".
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Spotlight search for TEXT?
Still on 10.4.9...
I try searching for a certain WORD within my many documents, but Spotlight can only find the NAMES of files, not WORDS WITHIN the files, at least none within any of my QuarkXpress files...
I also try Finder>Find, Use the MINUS button to delete all the other criteria, and change the default button from KIND to CONTENTS and type in the word I am looking for... There are no Quark files on the list, even though the Quark document is now actually opened and the certain word I'm looking for is right there...
Could it be that Spotlight or the Find function do not look into QuarkXpress documents? Or other documents like MSWord?Content searches should work with MS Word, but not sure about QuarkXpress.
You might have luck if you install the QuarkXpress Filter for Spotlight at the bottom of this page:
http://euro.quark.com/en/products/xpress/xtensions/quark_xt.html -
How can I search a text inside Ticket including text inside the email interaction in ticket?
I want know if C4C has any option for global search, from where i can search any text under each ticket including text under email interactions.
If anyone has tried this please share the search option.
I have tried using 'Ticket content' option under filter but this doesn't help as it only search in the description field.Dear Sunil,
Thank you for the reply. I will raise this issue under "Business By Design".
I have tried searching using the 'search' option on left, but this doesn't search inside the ticket interaction contents. Although this search is much powerful that the search available at Ticket Page.
Thank you. -
Can spotlight search for files in external drives?
I was wondering If I can index my hard drives so that when I do a search in spotlight, they show up along with the files in my primary drive.
Is this possible?Yes, but due to connection reliability of external drives, and the constant background noise that is required to keep the index up to date on them, I turn it off for external drives. I use File Buddy or Easy Find to find files on external drives.
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How to search for text in document
How do you search text within a document on the Samsung Galaxy 10.1? I click the search icon, enter the text to search and nothing happens. The only options I see are a circled "x" and "Cancel". The program does not automatically go to the entered search string and I cannot find anyway to cause the program to find the words. Thanks,
Once you have typed your search term in, you need to tap the "enter" key on the keyboard. Once you do, the keyboard should close, and you should see the first instance selected.
There will be two Arrow buttons in the bottom center of the screen to go back and forth through all of the instances of this word in the document.
If the word could not be found, then a message displaying "search term" not found will appear at the bottom of the screen above those buttons. -
Sometimes titles do not match the content. If I have a bunch of files with similar title, i.e. Chapter 1, 2, etc., but I want to find the chapter with the jabberwock in it, I used to be able to type "jabberwock" and it would come up in my search window. Now it's only finding titles. I have so many files on my puter that it's taking me forever to find important documents. Where did they hide this feature??? Tearing my hair out.
Spotlight Alternatives
EasyFind – Spotlight Replacement
Find Any File -
How to search for text inside multiple pdf file at once in ipad
Hi
I am student and i need search a word or subject or sentences on my all pdf files,i have tested some applications like ibook, ipdf, addobe reader, good reader ,.... But couldn't find what i need to have.
Please kindly help me to find the best application.
ThanksI found an article, that claims PDF Expert does exactly what you are asking.
Article: http://www.imore.com/pdf-expert-ipad-brings-full-text-search-pdf-library
PDF Expert: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pdf-expert-fill-forms-annotate/id393316844?mt=8 -
Can Spotlight search for file creation time ?
Hi,
Is it possible to use Spotlight to find files with a specific creation date and creation time ?
Example:
creation date: exactly 03/03/2008
creation time: after 10:00 and before 12:00Hi Kees, not that I'm aware of, and since you can't run Classic and "Find File", I'd get EasyFind, Spotlight won't be reliable...
http://www.devon-technologies.com/download/
Near the bottom of the page.
you can at least sort by date/time then to narrow it. -
I can't search for apps by pulling down on the home screen. Today view in Notification Center is turned off, but today view comes up when I pull down, not Spotlight Search.
Pull down starting in the middle of the home page, not at the top.
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Can't search for words anymore after saving PDFs in Preview
Hi everyone,
I would love to use Preview for my day-to-day use of previewing PDFs + highlighting + setting annotations. However, once I have saved the pdf with Preview I can not search for words anymore. If I search for one letter only, I would get cryptic hits like "7;%! 2%8%P%8!".
I am not sure, but I guess when preview saves the pdf using a Quartz PDF context, something happens with the index, or the underlying the font structuring.
Does anyone have had experience with these kinds of troubles?
Thanks in advance,
HeinrichHi, thanks for answering quickly, and the heads up on that other thread.
It undoubtedly has to do with the annotations or mark ups (the last, in my case).
In the linked-to thread they end by suggesting that it's because it's has "commenting not allowed" when you see it
using Adobe Reader, File > Properties > Security says Commenting: Not Allowed.
However, some documents with "commenting not allowed set in Adobe Reader I can highlight or annotate fine, without it messing up after saving.
Besides, any document I save as pdf even from Word, will say commenting not allowed in Adobe Reader. So if even my own documents are not highlight- or annotate-able without garbling the text, what documents would these functions be for, then?
I think what somebody mentioned in the other thread about character encodings hold some truth, I see it in documents in Danish with æ ø and å (however, not all!), but not in English-only docs (yet. Have any of you?).
Thanks in advance,
- Alexander -
Problems with searching for text in Preview
Hi, everyone...I'm hoping someone can help me out with this. I have an old MBP with Tiger installed and Preview 3.0.9. I have attempted to search for words in numerous PDF files and the search function NEVER brings up the words even when I know the words are contained in the document. I read the Preview manual and I know I'm following the correct procedures in searching for text, but nothing seems to work. Can anyone help me out with what I may be doing wrong? Thanks!
I can't picture what you could possibly be doing wrong, there's not much choice in the matter.
The only time Searching fails here is if the text in the PDF is actually only a graphic of the text.
Are these PDFs that you made? If so, what APP?
If you down load this PDF, does Search work on it?
http://web.fastermac.net/~bdaqua/TestText.pdf -
I have an 800 page pdf document to index and so far I have a script that will search for a list of keywords. But the text has large sections of code in a different font, and I think we would like to generate an index of just code examples. Is there a way to search for text of a given font in applescript? Something like
set theSel to find text theText
if the font of theSel is "Times"
write to file, etc.Please do send a page, I might be able to spot where the font problem is coming from - but no guarantee Address is in my profile.
You asked about the script formatter. red_menace of this forum wrote the script I use. To use it, you copy the script that you want to format to the clipboard and run the formatter. This then places the marked-up text in the clipboard so that you can paste it into the forum page.
<pre style="
font-family: Monaco, 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;
font-size: 10px;
margin: 0px;
padding: 5px;
border: 1px solid #000000;
width: 720px; height: 340px;
color: #000000;
background-color: #FFDDFF;
overflow: auto;">
script formatter - formats the clipboard text for forum posting
last reviewed January 19, 2009 red_menace[at]mac[dot]com
Input: text read from the clipboard
Output: formatted text copied to the clipboard
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to " "
-- some constants and switches
property TextColor : "#000000" -- black (see http://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_colornames.asp)
property BackgroundColor : "#FFDDFF" -- a light plum/purple
property BorderColor : "#000000" -- black
property TheWidth : "width: 720px; " -- a width attribute (deprecated in HTML 4.01)
property UseWidth : true -- use the width attribute?
property LineCount : 25 -- the number of lines before including the height attribute
property TheHeight : "height: " & ((LineCount * 13.6) as integer) & "px; " -- a maximum height for the <pre> box
property Emphasize : false -- emphasise (bold) the script text?
property UseURL : false -- include a Script Editor message link?
property AltURL : false -- use an alternate URL encoding?
property ToolTips : {¬
"this text can be pasted into the Script Editor", ¬
"this text can be pasted into an Automator 'Run AppleScript' action", ¬
"this text can be pasted into an Automator 'Run Shell Script' action", ¬
"this text can be pasted into a HTML editor", ¬
"this text can be pasted into a text editor", ¬
"- none -"}
property TooltipDefault : {item 1 of ToolTips} -- keep track of the last tooltip used
property TempFile : "Script_Formatter_TempFile" -- a temporary work file
try
-- write the clipboard to the temporary file
set TheClipboard to (the clipboard) as text
if TheClipboard is in {"", space, tab, return} then return -- clipboard is (basically) empty
set MyOpenFile to open for access ("/tmp/" & TempFile & ".txt" as POSIX file) with write permission
set eof of MyOpenFile to 0 -- empty any previous temp file
write TheClipboard to MyOpenFile
close access MyOpenFile
if UseURL then
-- encode URL (see http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Reference/Manpages/man1/pydoc.1. html)
do shell script "/usr/bin/python -c 'import sys, urllib; print urllib.quote(sys.argv[1])' " & quoted form of TheClipboard
-- add a link wrapper
set URLtext to "applescript://com.apple.scripteditor?action=new&script=" & the result
if AltURL then -- use an alternate URL encoding
set URLtext to "Click here to [url=" & URLtext & "]open this script in the Script Editor[/url]:<br />"
else -- use HTML anchor tag
set URLtext to "Click here to <a href=\"" & URLtext & "\">open this script in the Script Editor</a>:<br />"
end if
set PromptText to ((count URLtext) as text) & " URL and "
else
set {URLtext, PromptText} to {"", ""}
end if -- UseURL
-- convert to HTML (see http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/textutil .1.html)
do shell script "cd /tmp/; /usr/bin/textutil -convert html -excludedelements '(html, head, title, body, p, span, font)' -encoding US-ASCII " & TempFile & ".txt"
-- fix up some formatting and add a pre wrapper (see http://www.w3schools.com/tags/default.asp)
set HTMLtext to rest of paragraphs of (read ("/tmp/" & TempFile & ".html" as POSIX file))
if (count HTMLtext) is less than LineCount then -- skip the height attribute
set Height to ""
else
set Height to TheHeight
end if
set HTMLtext to FixCharacters from (HTMLtext as text) -- additional character encodings
if UseWidth then
set Width to TheWidth
else
set Width to ""
end if
if Emphasize then set HTMLtext to "<strong>" & HTMLtext & "</strong>"
set HTMLtext to "<pre style=\"
font-family: Monaco, 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;
font-size: 10px;
margin: 0px;
padding: 5px;
border: 1px solid " & BorderColor & ";
" & Width & Height & "
color: " & TextColor & ";
background-color: " & BackgroundColor & ";
overflow: auto;\"
title=\"\">
" & HTMLtext & "</pre>
-- assemble everything on the clipboard
set TheResult to choose from list ToolTips ¬
with title "Script Formatted" with prompt PromptText & ((count HTMLtext) as text) & " HTML characters will be placed on the clipboard (plus the following ToolTip):" default items TooltipDefault OK button name "OK" cancel button name "Cancel" with empty selection allowed without multiple selections allowed
if TheResult is false then -- cancel button
error number -128
else -- add the selected title attribute (tooltip), if any
set TooltipDefault to TheResult as text
set Here to (offset of " title=" in HTMLtext) - 1
set There to (offset of ">" in HTMLtext) - 1
if TheResult is in {{}, "- none -"} then -- no tooltip
set the clipboard to URLtext & (text 1 thru (Here - 1) of HTMLtext) & (text (There + 1) thru -1 of HTMLtext)
else
set the clipboard to URLtext & (text 1 thru (Here + 9) of HTMLtext) & TheResult & (text There thru -1 of HTMLtext)
end if
end if -- TheResult is false
on error ErrorMessage number ErrorNumber
log space & (ErrorNumber as text) & ":" & tab & ErrorMessage
try
close access MyOpenFile
end try
if (ErrorNumber is -128) or (ErrorNumber is -1711) then -- nothing (user cancelled)
else
activate me
display alert "Error " & (ErrorNumber as text) message ErrorMessage as warning buttons {"OK"} default button "OK"
end if
end try
to FixCharacters from TheText
fixes (converts) formatting characters used in some message forums (see http://www.asciitable.com/)
parameters - TheText [text]: the text to fix
returns [text]: the fixed text
-- this list of lists contains the characters to encode - item 1 is the character, item 2 is the HTML encoding
set TheCharacters to {¬
{"!", "!"}, ¬
{"*", "*"}, ¬
{"+", "+"}, ¬
{"-", "-"}, ¬
{"[", "["}, ¬
{"\\", "\"}, ¬
{"]", "]"}, ¬
{"^", "^"}, ¬
{"_", "_"}, ¬
{"~", "~"}}
set TempTID to AppleScript's text item delimiters
repeat with SomeCharacter in TheCharacters
if item 1 of SomeCharacter is in TheText then -- replace
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to item 1 of SomeCharacter
set the ItemList to text items of TheText
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to item 2 of SomeCharacter
set TheText to the ItemList as text
end if
end repeat
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to TempTID
return TheText
end FixCharacters
</pre> -
After installing MountainLion I can't search for mails in Mail
Hi all, after installing Mountain Lion this february I can't search for mails in mail before 2014! But the mails are all there, I can scroll down till 2011 ;-) Its only the search who killed himselfe after upgrading from Snow Leopard.
When I search for a word via Spotlight, it finds all old emails!
Whats wrong with my Mail.app?
ThxAfter reading A LOT of postings about this topic, I found my personal solution Because this problem started after upgrading to a new OSX, I mentioned that it must be something with rights permission. So I went on
User/Library/Mail right click -> Informations. Look down where you can see which groups has access, read/write. I went on the small wheel to change, set in my password, went on my user name, changed from "read&write" to "just read", switched back, marked "to all subfolders", then OSX asking if I really wanna do this -> yes. Waiting. Finished.
Now I see all my mails when I search inside the Mail.app.
Schnell und einfach ;-) Besten Dank -
How can i search for a color that is not in the color palette? (CS 5.5)
I have a client, that has used a certain color in a series of textfields throughout the document.
The color consists of all 4 CMYK colors and needs to be just Keycolor. However the color is not in the swatches menu, so marking it there and changing it won't work. I have downloaded a script that might have worked, but it could only find colors that were in the swatches palette. (Find / Change by Color / Overprint" version 1.2).
Ofcourse, creating a similar color and adding it to the swatches doesn't work.
Is there anyway that i can search for the color or does it really have to be done manually.
Best regardsYou can only search for real, actually existing swatches. No sweat: use "Add Unnamed Colors" in the Swatch panel dropdown menu to get a list of all of the manually applied colors.
Since you want to change all of them to the same color, you don't even have to use Search/Replace. Simply delete the new colors and select the one you need in the "Replace With" dialog that appears.
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