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)	`/`

A small find bar appears near the Find button in the toolbar. Type your text and matches are found as you type; a n / m counter shows the current match and the total number of matches.

Compact bar vs. floating window #

There are two find UIs:

Compact bar (default) — the small overlay near the toolbar.
Floating window — a separate, movable and resizable window that also shows a results list (see below). It floats over the document so it doesn’t cover the page.

Switch between them with the diagonal-arrows button on the right of the find UI (hover it for a tooltip):

Button	Tooltip	Action
arrows pointing out, on the compact bar	Open in a window	Pop the find UI out into a floating window
arrows pointing in, on the floating window	Dock to toolbar	Dock it back to the compact bar

The choice is remembered across launches via the SearchUIFloating advanced setting (true = floating window). The floating window’s position and size are remembered via SearchUIWindowPos. See Advanced options / settings.

Results list (floating window) #

When the find UI is a floating window, it lists every match below the search box:

each row shows a snippet of the surrounding text with the match highlighted, plus the page number on the right.
click a result, or use Up / Down (and Page Up / Page Down) while the cursor stays in the search box, to jump to that match. Find Next / Previous (the buttons, F3 / Shift + F3, or Enter / Shift + Enter) step through the list the same way.
typing selects and jumps to the first match automatically.

The list reflects matches across the whole document, even on large files.

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 finds the next match; Shift + Enter the previous. In the floating window these (and the arrow keys) step through the results list with the cursor left in the box; with the compact bar, 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.

The find UI closes when you switch tabs — each tab gets its own fresh search.

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.
The current match is highlighted with FixedPageUI.SelectionColor (configurable in advanced settings); all other matches use a secondary orange highlight so the active match stands out.

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.