Finding text

Finding text in documents

SumatraPDF can search for text in PDF, EPUB, MOBI, and other formats that support text extraction.

Open the find box #

Action	Shortcut
Find	`Ctrl + F`
Find (alternate)	`/`

The find toolbar appears at the bottom of the window.

Find next / previous #

Action	Shortcut
Find next	`F3`
Find previous	`Shift + F3`
Find next (selection as needle)	`Ctrl + F3`
Find previous (selection as needle)	`Shift + Ctrl + F3`

All shortcuts are also listed in Keyboard shortcuts and Commands.

Focus matters #

Shortcuts behave differently depending on where keyboard focus is:

Focus in the document — F3 / Shift + F3 jump to the next / previous match.
Focus in the find box — Enter usually finds the next match; Shift + Enter the previous. F3 may not work until you click back in the document.

If Ctrl + F behaves oddly (for example replacing the search term with selected text), you may have focus split between the find box and the page. Click the document pane, then press F3.

Laptop keyboards #

On many laptops the F1–F12 keys control volume and brightness unless you hold Fn. If F3 changes volume instead of finding the next match, use Fn + F3, or rebind CmdFindNext in custom keyboard shortcuts.

How search works #

Search is case-insensitive by default (German ß matches ss since 3.7).
Matching continues onto following pages and wraps around to the start of the document.
Matches are highlighted with FixedPageUI.SelectionColor (configurable in advanced settings).

Command Palette #

Ctrl + K and type find to run the Find command without using the keyboard shortcut.

Command-line and automation #

Open a document and start a search immediately:

SumatraPDF.exe -search "needle" document.pdf

For an already open document, use DDE:

[Search("C:\path\file.pdf", "needle")]

To jump to a page and select a term only if it appears on that page:

[GotoPageWord("C:\path\file.pdf", 12, "needle")]

Search across many PDFs (command-line tool) #

Use sumatrapdf-tool grep — see Tool grep and Search text in PDF from command line.

Web search / translation of selection #

To send selected text to Google, Bing, DeepL, etc., see Customize search / translation services. That is separate from in-document find.