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I have a PDF open in preview and am trying to search for a phrase, rather than just searching string matching exactly what is in the search box it searches for each word separately I can apply quotes around the text, but this doesn’t work if you leave out part of the word.
Below is a block of text, and search results showing what I mean.
It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply
because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in.
However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must
be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by
infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average
population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be
zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe
is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are
merely the products of a deranged imagination.
Search Results in Preview:
infinite - 2 results (good)
finite - 4 results (good)
finite number - 7 results (should be 3, it is searching for each word separately)
finite numb - 7 results (same as above)
"finite number" - 3 results (good, includes 'infinite')
"finite numb" - 0 results (what?)
Search Results in TextEdit (What I would like from preview):
infinite - 2
finite - 4
finite number - 3
finite numb - 3
"finite number" - 0 (quotes are treated as part of the search term)
"finite numb" - 0
This search is useless for large documents when you are searching for a specific string, you either get hundreds of results or none. (I’m sure it used to work and something has changed).
Is there actual logic behind this, and can I make preview search like TextEdit does?
I am using:
Preview Version 8.1
OS X 10.11.5
EDIT: What has happened to search in general? I get different results again when searching this page from Safari:
infinite - 2
finite - 2
finite number - 2
finite numb - 2
"finite number" - 0
"finite numb" - 0
James P
Posted 2016-07-14T10:08:02.387
Reputation: 61