Skip to content
Zoan Docs

PDF Search Text

PDF Search Text

Section titled “PDF Search Text”

Type: pdf-search-text  ·  Package: PDF Activities v1.2.4  ·  Output: List

Searches for a text in the PDF and returns the list of page numbers (from 1) where it appears. Useful to locate sections inside long documents before extracting or manipulating those pages.

How it works

Section titled “How it works”

Goes through every page looking for text in the text extracted from each one (the same one PDF Get Text (Page) returns) and returns the numbers of the pages where it finds it. By default it is case-insensitive. It doesn’t modify the file.

  • It is a literal text search, not a regular expression.
  • Each page counts once, even if the text appears several times on it.
  • A text split across two pages is not found.

Required parameters

Section titled “Required parameters”
ParameterTypeDefaultDescription
pathstring—Path of the PDF file.
textstring—Text to look for.

Optional parameters

Section titled “Optional parameters”
ParameterTypeDefaultDescription
caseSensitiveboolfalseCase-sensitive search. The Designer switch or an expression that returns true/false. Since 1.2.4. Any other value is an error.

Output

Section titled “Output”

Returns a List of int with the page numbers (from 1), in ascending order, e.g. [2, 5]. If the text doesn’t appear —or the PDF is scanned—, an empty list.

Common errors

Section titled “Common errors”
MessageCause and fix
File not found.The path doesn’t exist.
'caseSensitive' must be true or false. Received: ….The caseSensitive expression didn’t return a yes/no. Since 1.2.4.
'path' is required. / 'text' is required.The parameter was left empty or its expression returned null.
PDF library error when opening the filePassword-protected or damaged PDF. See Protected and damaged PDFs.

Example

Section titled “Example”

Find the pages of an annex and extract them into a separate PDF:

PDF Search Text   path = filePath   text = "ANNEX A"   → output: pages
If   condition = count(pages) > 0
 └─ then:
      PDF Extract Pages   path = filePath   pages = pages   output = "C:/annexA.pdf"

The list goes as is to PDF Extract Pages or PDF Rotate (since version 1.2.4; before, you had to turn it into text with join(pages, ",")). To keep only the first page, use pages = pages[0].

Section titled “Related activities”