Search Text in PDF - Free Online Browser Tool

Find keywords and text occurrences across pages.

Find is only as useful as what it searches. This tool searches the entire text layer and reports every occurrence with its page number, so you can jump straight to a clause, a figure or a name without scrolling through the document.

This search text in pdf utility runs completely inside your web browser. Your document is opened locally and processed on your own device using JavaScript and WebAssembly, so your file is never uploaded to any server. There is no signup, no watermark and no limit on how many documents you can handle.

  • 100% client-side - files never leave your device
  • Instant processing, no upload wait
  • Works on desktop, tablet and mobile
  • Free forever, no account required

Common next steps: Online PDF Viewer, Extract Hyperlinks, Extract Text from Page Range.

How to Use the Search Text in PDF Tool

Four steps, and the whole thing runs locally on your own device.

  1. Load the PDF

    Drop in the document to search. It must contain selectable text.

  2. Enter a search term

    Type a word or phrase — a clause reference, a party name, a figure. Matching is case-insensitive.

  3. Review the matches

    Each hit is listed with its page number and surrounding context, so you can tell relevant matches from incidental ones.

  4. Jump to the page

    Select a result to navigate directly to that page in the viewer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does search find nothing in my scanned document?

Because a scan has no text layer to search. It must go through OCR before any text search will work on it.

Does it search inside text that is part of an image?

No. Only the actual text layer is searched, which is exactly the text that can be selected and copied.

Is the search case-sensitive?

No, matching ignores case, so searching for "agreement" finds "Agreement" and "AGREEMENT" alike.

How is this different from Extract Plain Text?

This tool locates specific terms and shows where they appear. Extract Plain Text pulls out the entire document for reading elsewhere.

Is my search term sent to any server?

No. The search runs entirely on your device against the locally-read text layer.