How do I search within a PDF in Library Digitised Collections?
Some (though not all) PDFs in Library Digitised Collections will be searchable with your web browser. The specifics of the search will depend on the browser you are using; we recommend either Firefox or Chrome.
- When using Firefox a toolbar will automatically appear at the top of the window in which the PDF has opened. Click on the magnifying glass that appears on the left hand side of this and in the box that opens type your search terms. If the search is successful two arrows will appear next to this box allowing you to toggle through the document to each occurrence of the term
- When using Chrome press ctrl+f on your keyboard. This opens a search box at the top of the page. As this searches both the web page and the open PDF any instances of the search term throughout the Library Digitised Collections metadata will also be highlighted along with all occurrences within the open document. For successful searches the number of instances will be shown next to the search box along with arrows allowing you to toggle through them. In addition a side bar to the right of the PDF highlights at what point within the document the search term appears
Optionally you can download the PDF allowing you complete freedom to open and search it using whatever software you prefer.
Tips
If you only know the first few letters of a word or reference you wish to search for then you can use a '*' symbol. For example, searching in a name field for Da* will bring up David, Darren, Davidson and so on.
Optionally, where you are unsure of a single letter or number, you can use a '?' symbol. This is particularly useful when searching for a sequence of references that might all have the same prefix as with HAM/1/1/2/?. This will bring up results for HAM/1/1/2/1, HAM/1/1/2/2 and so on up to HAM/1/1/2/9. Using this method if you wanted to get results for HAM/1/1/2/10 - HAM/1/1/2/99 you would use the search term HAM/1/1/2/??