[NFBCS] searching for text in PDF documents

[Steve Jacobson]

Elizabeth,

It is difficult to be very specific and know it will work because there are so many versions of the Acrobat Reader and everybody updates at different rates.  However, here are some observations.  In my experience, CONTROL-F brings up the Adobe "FIND" dialog.  In many web browsers, JAWS seems to override CONTROL-F with the JAWS dialog that is also invoked by CONTROL INSERT F.  There may be a setting I am missing, but when I use the Adobe find command, the results do not seem to be synchronized with the virtual buffer that JAWS uses to convey information from PDF documents to speech or braille displays.  I have had better results by using the JAWS "FIND" dialog by pressing CONTROL JAWSKEY f.  This assumes that you are specifying that the entire document be read into the Virtual buffer.  This can take a long time on large documents, though, and there are other disadvantages.  If you don't have Adobe Acrobat set to read the whole document, it is most likely that only the current page is visible in the Virtual Buffer.  However, if you have the entire document loaded, it appears that F3 will repeat the previous JAWS find command and you can bounce through a document finding repeated references.  If you don't use JAWS, some variation on this using your screen reader's ability to search the virtual buffer should still apply.

There is no doubt that the Adobe Search command has more power.  Possibly others here can suggest how to get it to work, but my approach with the JAWS Find might at least get you by.   

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

-----Original Message-----
From: NFBCS <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Elizabeth Campbell via NFBCS
Sent: Saturday, January 9, 2021 12:52 PM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Elizabeth Campbell <batescampbell at gmail.com>
Subject: [NFBCS] searching for text in PDF documents

Good afternoon all,

I've serve on the bargaining committee for our newsroom union, and we were
asked to research various contracts for information about overtime,
vacations, etc as we put together our proposals for management. These
contracts are PDF documents, and I am having a tough time finding specific
information in these documents. I am using the Control F command for
finding words and phrases, but I don't think that approach is working. Any
suggestions are welcome.

Thanks!!

-- 
Elizabeth Campbell
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