PDF's & Spotlight

Documents scanned and OCR'd in Adobe Acrobat are not being indexed by Spotlight. I have read in another post that Spotlight ignors pdfs created by Acrobat but not Preview and all you had to do was change "Open With Preview" in the get info and Spotlight would then index. However, I tried this and then forced Spotlight to index the folder the file was in and it still does come up with hits. If you do the find command from within Preview or from within Acrobat it will find the text.

Greetings,
The issue is really quite confusing but not impossible to work around. I spent about 10 minutes cursing the gods above and contemplating all manner of evil upon Apple and Adobe until the heavens opened and showed me the light.
Follow closely...
Solution 1. Move a copy of your Adobe PDF's to an alternate location such as a removable drive (USB Drive, External Hard Drive). I can almost say with 100% certainty that spotlight with be able to search inside of the documents in the alternate location.
Solution 2. In Adobe 7.0 Pro, go to the Advanced menu and use the PDF optimizer to save a copy of your PDF again in the same location as the original with a different filename. For example MyPDF.pdf becomes MyPDFoptimized.pdf.
Both solutions worked for me, so...
Good luck and let me know if this helps anyone else.
charles.r.a.johnson at mac.com

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PDFs From Spotlight Open Up BIG In Preview

Try searching for something in Spotlight, and click on one of the PDF Documents results. When it opens in Preview it will be zoomed in, up to as much as 200%, with the searched for term highlighted in yellow.
Is this how its supposed to work? Are PDFs ALWAYS supposed to appear zoomed in, if you've searched for them using Spotlight? This didn't use to happen in Tiger.

I have the same issue. In Tiger I think Spotlight would enter your search term into Preview's search field but Tiger's version of Preview didn't zoom in. It was only a minor hassle to clear the search field to use the document.
I've looked at Preview's preferences and Spotlight's preferences and haven't found anything helpful.
My suggestion is to use the following mouse clicks after opening the document via Spotlight.
Click the clear button to empty the search field in Preview.
Click the "=" icon in the Zoom Icon set.
Click the zoom to fit icon to display a full page of the document.
You may have to customize the icons by using the tool under the View menu to get these icons displayed for you.

Spotlight not doing so well with .pdfs

I scan a lot of documents that come across my desk, using Acrobat Pro 8.1. But I'm finding that Spotlight isn't doing a very good job of recognizing text within those documents. I'll enter a search string from that document and it won't show up in Spotlight.
Is there some trick I need to know to creating PDFs that Spotlight can index?
Or is there a better way?

I've been using Adobe Acrobat and selecting OCR as part of the scan process. Sometimes it produces PDFs that Spotlight finds, and sometimes it doesn't.
In experimenting, I'm finding the most accurate and reliable OCR process is to use the software that came with my scanner (HP Device Manager) to make the scan, and then use ReadIris to perform the OCR. It adds a few steps, and takes a lot more time, but it does seem to work better.
This is about the ONLY area in which I miss my PC. The Windows application PaperPort did this sort of thing brilliantly, efficiently, quickly. Wish someone would make something like that for Macs.

Unable to open pdf files on my IMac I have downloaded

Unable to open PDF Files on my IMac I have installed the latest Adobe Reader still no joy when I try to open any PDF File from a site I just get an empty black
page.

Is it only ones you have downloaded? What about for example the ones that came with your iMac - you didn't give a model but mine has a folder "User Guides and Information" that has a number of pdfs. Spotlight should find it for you.

Spotlight comments not available?

I've developed an internal website at work that uses PHP, MySQL, Applescript and PDF files to manage the workflow for print projects.
The basic setup is that a user "publishes" a PDF from InDesign using an Applescript (which ensures the PDF is created with standard settings and file security) and the PDF is copied to the webserver into a folder for review. The applescript then puts the designer's name into the PDF's Spotlight comments.
Someone reviews the project from a web-page, which looks in the folder and displays thumbnails of its contents. PHP runs an exec() to get the Spotlight comments, and displays the designer's name below the thumbnail, along with the date and time the PDF was "published".
$PDFcomment = exec("osascript -e 'tell app \"Finder\" to get comment of POSIX file \"$projectsFile/$shortID/$dirShort.pdf\"'");
The problem I'm running into is that this command is not consistently returning the Spotlight comment. Often the PHP webpage says it's empty, but when I go to the networked volume where these PDFs are stored and Get Info, I can see the correct comment.
The comment will only appear if I use the Finder on the machine that houses the PDF and Get Info. Subsequent viewings of the PHP webpage then return the correct comment.
How can I force the Finder to get the current Spotlight comment without having to manually check the file first?
PowerMac G4 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Running the password reset actually recreated the problem but that's ok because it helped lead me to the true cause and answer. Being a member of the wrong group can cause all sorts of annoying problems e.g. asking for authentication when deleting files, spotlight not indexing some files etc. Luckily this post http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=200711291134001 had the answer. I'll sum it up here:
I had a problem with spotlight not indexing some files especially spotlight comments. I'd tried deleting spotlight-V100 to re-index and many other things which did not work when all along it was a group membership problem.
I had upgraded from Tiger to Leopard. The GUI tools in Leopard showed my primary group was staff and nothing looked wrong until I discovered the Unix commands thanks to your great script. I didn't run the script but it was very well commented so I knew what the commands did if I ran them in terminal.
dscl . read /Groups/staff
showed I wasn't in the group staff. (even though system preferences>accounts>advanced options said i was!)
sudo dscl . append /Groups/staff GroupMembership $USER
added me to group staff.
sudo chgrp -R staff $HOME
changes group ownership on all files in home to staff.
sudo diskutil repairPermissions /
repair disk permissions.
Reboot.

Portable receipt Scanner

Does anyone know of a good portable receitp scanner that is compatible with mac OS. I have already checked into Neatreceipt but is not comptible according to their support. Any others out their?
I am getting my Husband the new macbook for xmas surprise. he has been loyal PC user for years. I am trying to set the macbook up so it is a nobrainer for him and he enjoys the experience right out of the box. He really wants a portable receipt scanner for xmas. I hope there is one out there, as this would difintely not help my cause of convincing him that mac is the way to go if there is not one made for mac.

This doesn't exactly fit the "portable" requirement, but my inexpensive Canon LiDE 35 scanner's software includes a PDF scanning option that also recognizes most of the text in the scan and makes it searchable. I use this when I scan important receipts. With searchable PDF scans + Spotlight, I can usually find any receipt I need.
Perhaps instead of looking specifically for a "receipt scanner," you may want to look for a scanner of the appropriate size that includes software of this kind.
There seems to be a shareware application for Macs called "ReceiptWallet" that would cover the software side of this question, so I would think any scanner that fit the portability requirement would be fine. (Since "portable" isn't necessarily the same for everyone.)
http://www.receiptwallet.com/

How do I find the path to a pdf file I have found in Spotlight?

I downloaded a pdf file, and a few days later couldn't remember where I put it on my HD.I found it easily using spotlight, but that brings up the file as a full pdf in Preview, and I can't see any way of finding the patrent folder, or the path to it, so I can find it again or move it. How do I do that?
Thanks,
Richard

I just found the answer myself - https://discussions.apple.com/message/17196624#17196624 .
I agree with the comments in that thread - not at all intuitive!
Richard

Certain PDF documents not spotlight-indexed nor copy/paste to TextEdit

Hello,
I've got a problem with certain PDF documents and Preview.app. I can read them perfectly by eye (I understand there's an overlying image?) but the text characters, when copied and pasted into TextEdit, are little rectangles with a tiny alien face (?) inside. TextEdit states the font is "LastResort", but doesn't allow to change the font, nor can I save the TextEdit document ("UTF-8 cannot be used for saving the document").
The worst about all is that Spotlight doesn't recognise the PDF files, they are not indexed, so I cannot search for text inside.
I tried to open the PDF document with Adobe Reader, which opens the document, copies and pastes into TextEdit without a problem, so I believe the problem must be on the Preview.app and/or System end.
Any solution, or is this a bug? Thanks for any help!

Any solution, or is this a bug?
I think this has to do with the way some pdf files are constructed, mapping text to the Unicode Private Use Area (reflected by those Last Resort symbols you see) plus shortcomings of Preview compared to Adobe Reader. The only fix is to use the latter, and tell Apple you want Preview improved:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

PDF files are OCR'd and searchable in Preview, but Spotlight is unable to find

I use Microsoft OneDrive to sync all of my scanned invoices, bills, and receipts for my business to my home and work computers. At the office I have a newer HP desktop with Windows 8.1 with OneDrive built in natively. At home I use a 4+ year old iMac running Mavericks and the OneDrive app from the Appstore. Everything syncs just fine.
The problem is that when I want to search for invoices coded to one of our job codes, "5801" for example, Spotlight is unable to locate anything. However, when I open a scanned pdf containing "5801", it is able to easily find it and highlight it within Preview.
My Windows 8.1 desktop has the ability to search "5801" and find every pdf containing "5801", so I know it's possible.
I have installed the latest OneDrive updates, removed the OneDrive folder from Spotlight indexing twice (to then reindex), and nothing has worked.
Any ideas?

Can you search on other terms in OneDrive and find results in Spotlight?
Reindex Spotlight files
Open Spotlight in System Preferences.
Verify that PDF Documents is checked.
Under Privacy add OneDrive folder, wait a bit then remove to force Spotlight to reindex your OneDrive files.
You might want to consider running the combo updater over your install to refresh your files. This has been known to fix odd issues.
Combo updater: Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update v.1.1 - 1.09 GB
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1399
MORE INFO ON WHY RUNNING COMBO FIXES ISSUES
Apple updates available from the Software Update application are incremental updates. Delta updates are also incremental updates and are available from Apple Downloads (software updates are generally smaller than delta updates). The Combo updates contain all incremental updates and will update files that could have become corrupted.
Combo updaters will install on the same version as they're applying--no need to roll back or do a clean install. So if you think you've got a borked 10.6.8 install from a regular update, just run the 10.6.8 Combo Updater on that system.
"Delta" updaters can only take you from one version to the next. For example: 10.6.7 to 10.6.8. If somehow the 10.6.8 is missing something it should have, and that something isn't changed between 10.6.7 and 10.6.8 it will still be stale after the delta update.

Some words overlooked by spotlight in pdfs

i am making pdf's of illustrator files so i am able to have spotlight index them but in some pdfs spotlight seems to be overlooking certain words for no apparent reason. all words may be indexed except for one. if i open the pdf in preview or acrobat and search for the text, it is found, but not by spotlight. any ideas? thanks

Might be the size and where it's located n the file, iirc Spotlight only indexes so far into files, can't remember the number though.
I'd get EasyFind...
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/11706

Spotlight only displays PDFs - how to see all search types?

Problem: When I enter search criteria into spotlight, the results only show one type of search. For example, if PDFs are included in the preferences, I only see PDFs, not Documents and PDFs. Turning off PDF in the spotlight preferences, results in searches that only find documents.
I used to get a selection of PDFs, Documents etc. but now its just one or the other.
Sample of problem. Note when PDFs are turned on in the preferences, and a search for "assess image" is entered, I only get PDFs. The same search when PDFs are turned off results in the documents being found. The problem may be related to Lion when I did the upgrade in Oct 2011.
I have aready tried to delete and have spotlight rebuild the preferences file in ~/Library ... to no avail.

I found a similar post https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3296309 that indicates this problem does not occur on an admin account, so I changed my account to admin and it did not help. However if I logon to a seperate account, spotlight works correctly on that account. I therefore suspect some type of corruption to the spotlight settings on my primary account which has the problem.

Searching inside PDFs ... maybe even with spotlight?

Does anybody know of an application that lets me archive and search all my paper bound documents?
While there are some applications on Windows (such as ScanSnap) I've not seen anything on the Mac. The workflow I have in mind is to scan a document and then somehow being able to search for words in that document - but with no manual tagging - ideally with spotlight.
Any suggestions?

Thanks for your input so far. I realize that .pdfs are just images, so please let me elaborate.
In more technical terms, what I'm looking for is this:
A utility that scans to .pdf and then runs the document through its OCR engine. It then adds the full text of the .pdf to the file as spotlight comments. This would preserve the original layout and yet make its content searchable without manual tagging.

I accidentally found a .PDF file using Spotlight while I was searching for something else. However, I can't find the location of the file.

While I was using Spotlight to search for an app. I came across a .PDF file related to my job. However, it's not in the finder nor in the documents folder. As matter of fact, it's not even listed in the PDF files section. I can open it using Spotlight.....but I can't find it. It it on my Inbox? Do I have files lurking around in my computer without me knowing about them? Also I don't remember downloading said file. It's not harmful it's just a simple 32-page .PDF file that contains information on my company policies. But where is it and how did get there?

If you hold down the option key, it will typically show the location. Or you can often hit option-return on the file and it will reveal the file in the Finder, instead of opening it.
Final option is to open it, and just option-click the filename in the toolbar of Preview and it should show you the location.
It's probably an attachment to an email you've received. If you have Mail set to cache emails and their attachments it'll be stashed in a subdirectory of ~/Library/Mail. Which is fine.

Spotlight can't find my PDF files.

Hi all,
just bought a ipad mini.
I have downloaded Adobe PDF reader.
I have placed several pdf files on my device.
When I use Spotlight to search for a file, it can't find it.
It does not list any of my pdf files.
In Settings - General - Spotlight Search, all the items are ticked.
I have tried rebooting.
Is there a solution to this problem?
Many thanks
John

As far as I know, it's not possible to search your documents. Read here: iOS: Understanding Spotlight Search

Restrict spotlight search results for pdfs

I have a great number of academic papers in pdf format. Each paper has a title, an abstract, main text and a number of references. By default spotlight wouldn't distinguish the difference between these portions. But when I type the title of paper, papers that cite that paper also shows up, which is annoy, because I actually only want to locate the paper that has the title. I'm wondering if there is a way to restrict searches in only title, abstract, main text or references in academic papers of pdf format.

Using a Finder search (command-F), which also uses Spotlight, you should be able to tailor your searches to file names as well as extensions, or other criteria.

PDF's & Spotlight

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