Can not get ifilter to work

[David12846]

Howdy,

I'm a big fan of PDF-XChange. I've used the paid maitenance version on my PC for years. I recently installed PDF-XChange on our PC at our non-profit Historical Society.

On our PC at the Hist Soc (Windows 10 Pro with the latest updates), I've had problems getting Windows Explorer to search within pdf's. I do not recall all the steps I took to try and get Explorer to search for text within PDF's. I recall the original Indexing option for PDF was "PDF Reader Handler". It was set to search for text within pdf's. The folder options were set to "Always search file names and contents". I searched in Explorer for text within my pdf's. No records found.

I ran the XCShInfoSetup file (PDF-XChange>Shell extensions) and verified the Indexing Option for pdf's was set to "PDF XChange Handler" (or something like that). Folders were set to be indexed and they still had "Always search file names and contents" checked. I rebooted. I searched in Explorer for text within my pdf's. No records found.

Somewhere in the mix I also copied IFilter-AdobePDF64-9.0.msi from my PC and executed it on our Hist Society's PC. Still no records found.

I recall several years ago (Pre Windows 10) the Adobe pdf IFilter was needed but I read recently it is not needed on resent builds of Windows 10 and the IFilter is not available on Adobe's website. I also recall (again, Pre Windows 10), Adobe Viewer included the PDF IFilter.

Most of pdf's I need to find were built with PDF-XChange and OCR was applied to the pdf's. I have over 6000 pdf's. What do I need to do to get Explorer to read the contents of my pdf's?

Thanks - David (Eastern Upstate NY)

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, David12846

After you have used the shell utility to register our extensions - you may need to have windows rebuild the search index using our ifilter as well. Note that on some devices, this can take a few HOURS to complete.

Before rebuilding, open the start menu and type "indexing options" from the window that appears - select the filter set you are working with, and click "advanced" then ensure PDF is both enabled, and set to include file contents:

image.png

Once that is enabled, of if it already is - look to the index settings tab, and click the "rebuild" button.

Kind regards,

[David12846]

Hello Dan,

I did as you suggested. Something is still not right though.

I'm able to find pdf files in most folders based on the pdf's content, but hits are not being returned for sub-folders. Searching directly in sub-folders also gives me zero hits. I am able to find txt files in my top-level and sub-folders based on the contents of txt files. BTW, the sub-folder I need to search in has 45 folders with a total of 74,000 files. There are probably 7,000 pdf files.

All folders have "Folder Options>Search" check-marked for "Always search file names & contents".

I deleted and re-built the index whenever I made a change.

The top level folder has sharing turned on and is accessible from another PC on our network. I understand the index will not work across a network. I'm only trying to get pdf searching to work on PC where the folders are housed. For testing purposes, I do not want to turn sharing off because sharing was almost impossible to set.

David