Cataloging and searching PDF's

Shaolin_Monkey

I guess this is a slightly odd one but just wondering if anyone has any ideas. I have a large archive of documents in PDF format which I want to be able to search by keyword. For example, I want to find all PDF's that contain a specific term. Can anyone think of any idea's for software that could do this, preferably low cost?

I also plan for the documents to be held on a NAS if that makes any difference.

Thanks for any help

UncleZen

I may be worn but doesnt windows 7/8 do this, not sure about on a nas though

bob_a_builder

Your starter for 10 .....

Adobe PDF iFilter and Windows Search

Shaolin_Monkey

UncleZen wrote: »

I may be worn but doesnt windows 7/8 do this, not sure about on a nas though

I'm using 7 64bit but it doesn't appear to by default. However after installing the 64 bit version of Adobe iFilter, and re-indexing the disks, I can now search for the contents of PDF's on local drives.

I don't have the NAS yet - does anyone know if they can be indexed for use with Windows search?

tocsin

Shaolin_Monkey wrote: »

I'm using 7 64bit but it doesn't appear to by default. However after installing the 64 bit version of Adobe iFilter, and re-indexing the disks, I can now search for the contents of PDF's on local drives.

I don't have the NAS yet - does anyone know if they can be indexed for use with Windows search?

One possibility would be for you to map the network drive or folder to a 'local' drive letter (e.g. Z: ) and index that on the PC you want to search from - haven't tried this on W7, but it should work

Shaolin_Monkey

tocsin wrote: »

One possibility would be for you to map the network drive or folder to a 'local' drive letter (e.g. Z: ) and index that on the PC you want to search from - haven't tried this on W7, but it should work

Thanks for the suggestion (sorry I've only just seen the post) but my research so far suggests Windows 7 x64 is unable to index network drives, even if they've been mapped under a drive letter. Apparently the 32 bit OS has a patch available to enable it, but not the 64 bit version.

Any suggestions? I've seen Google Desktop Search suggested as a possible solution but it's discontinued.

isofa

How about this, but the file content might not be indexed, but file properties are...
http://www.copernic.com/en/products/desktop-search/index.html

However only the professional one offers what you need.

tocsin

Umm... it's a bit naff if the super-duper 64bit OS can't do things the venerable 32bit OS can

Thought no. 1 - if they have removed drive mapping, is that because it has been replaced by the Libraries feature? (Another thing I don't use!).

Thought no. 2 - like Copernic, suggested by isofa, I use FileLocator Lite ( https://www.mythicsoft.com ). I didn't suggest this before, as I prefer to come up with a 'no extra software' solution if possible.

HTH

Forgot to say the important bit - FileLocator works from a W7 Pro laptop accessing folders on a Windows Home Server 2011 network drive, so it _should_ work on a NAS drive!