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I need something that can quickly search through many .txt, .pdf, and .doc files (.djvu also preferable). Can anyone here name or recommend such a tool (Windows platform) ?
Rook
Posted 2009-08-18T22:25:34.783
Reputation: 21 622
Searching through txt, pdf, and doc files
Answers
3
PowerGREP is another suggestion.
From their website:
PowerGREP is a powerful Windows grep tool. Quickly search through large numbers of files on your PC or network, including text and binary files, compressed archives, MS Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PDF files, OpenOffice files, etc. Find the information you want with powerful text patterns (regular expressions) specifying the form of what you want, instead of literal text.
It's not free, (it costs $149) but it appears to be the best fit for what you're looking for (except the DJVU one - I haven't found anything that can search through them yet.)
Isxek
Posted 2009-08-18T22:25:34.783
Reputation: 3 785
Heh, just before I saw this answer I stumbled upon it, and it indeed looks to be able to search through pdf's without the gibberish. – Rook – 2009-08-19T00:51:53.387
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agent ransack. ( just google it)
has the advantage that it searches pretty fast on networked drives too.
Tim Williscroft
Posted 2009-08-18T22:25:34.783
Reputation: 675
When I use it to search for a word in a directory full of pdf's, it gives me gibberish in the preview window. Is it supposed to work like that ? – Rook – 2009-08-18T23:22:39.850
haven't used it on pdf recently so may well do. commercial version has additional support ( may do better on pdf) – Tim Williscroft – 2009-08-19T04:58:04.423
Make sure you have the 'PDF format' option checked in the Options tab – snowdude – 2012-01-25T11:10:29.467
3
I use WinGrep for this purpose. Free, small, works really good.
Apache
Posted 2009-08-18T22:25:34.783
Reputation: 14 755
harrymc
Posted 2009-08-18T22:25:34.783
Reputation: 306 093
I just tried this one out today since I still had the older version installed - it's able to find text within PDFs. – Isxek – 2010-09-09T18:48:22.197
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Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams
Posted 2009-08-18T22:25:34.783
Reputation: 100 516
2
I used the Copernic Desktop Search for a while. It even manages to search through email attachments.
Tobias Kienzler
Posted 2009-08-18T22:25:34.783
Reputation: 3 262
I recommend Copernic too... Being using it for few months and its the best i've come across. Used Google Desktop and Blinkx but Copernic is free and really useful. Indexes all the contents of pdf,doc,docx, cs, vb (programming too!) + much more. The best feature is it shows when you search, the exact location where the text you search is... – Ranhiru Jude Cooray – 2010-08-17T15:42:11.583
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I'd suggest you look at File Content Finder (disclaimer - I'm its developer). It's specifically designed for searching file contents without indexing. It supports all major file formats - pdf, doc(x), xls(x), pptx, rtf, and others.
Its filtering lets you optimise and refine your search by multiple criteria - file type, creation/modification dates, etc.
You can get it from the Mac App Store or the Microsoft Store.
Agent Ransack is a similar app, but only works on Windows and supports fewer file formats (doesn't support doc files!).
Geo Systems
Posted 2009-08-18T22:25:34.783
Reputation: 76
1
I use Agent Ransack at work. It works pretty awesome and tries to search through binary files as well. It will find text in FLA's and has the ability to use regular expressions.
Chuck
Posted 2009-08-18T22:25:34.783
Reputation: 491
1
I use AstroGrep:
AstroGrep is a Microsoft Windows grep utility. Grep is a UNIX command-line program which searches within files for keywords. AstroGrep supports regular expressions, versatile printing options, stores most recently used paths and has a "context" feature which is very nice for looking at source code.
.. and the best: it's free.
Roberto Barros
Posted 2009-08-18T22:25:34.783
Reputation: 231
it doesn't search inside pdf (I just tried it) – JinSnow – 2015-11-13T07:32:41.463
Not bad, but it still has problems going through pdf files. Gibberish and not finding all matches. – Rook – 2009-08-19T02:25:48.457
0
Windows Search 4.0 for Windows XP (KB940157) will bring the Vista/7 searching experience to XP. ;-)
Tamara Wijsman
Posted 2009-08-18T22:25:34.783
Reputation: 54 163
0
I use windows power shell. It works when searching for strings in txt and doc. Not sure about pdf files though.
The command I use is as follow:
Get-ChildItem -Recurse | Select-String "find this string"
Alvin Sim
Posted 2009-08-18T22:25:34.783
Reputation: 111
JP Alioto
Posted 2009-08-18T22:25:34.783
Reputation: 6 278
0
I have your answer!!! You need to install cygwin for windows. This will let you use *Unix commands in a windows environment and it is totally free. Once you get it installed you can use the regular 'grep' function to search anything you want.
Here is the download link: http://www.cygwin.com/setup.exe
Bertlacy
Posted 2009-08-18T22:25:34.783
Reputation: 29
afaik, grep doesn't do pdf and doc files. – Rook – 2009-08-19T02:21:11.680
Just to clarify: you need something that can search through only those kinds of files? – Isxek – 2009-08-18T22:27:42.690
2@Isxek - well, I need those files. Ability to search through some other as well won't hurt. – Rook – 2009-08-18T22:38:50.950