# PDF Text Search

**URL:** <https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/pdf-text-search/48894>\
**Category:** Features\
**Created:** [1 March 2026 02:29 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/pdf-text-search/48894 "2026-03-01T02:29:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![simwai](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex028/user_avatar/discourse.joplinapp.org/simwai/32/28272_2.png) [@simwai](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/u/simwai)\
**Post date:** [1 March 2026 02:29 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/pdf-text-search/48894/1 "2026-03-01T02:29:45Z")

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Heyo, I thought it would be pretty neat to have a search functionality which can look through pdfs using ripgrep-all for no manual index building and blazing fast search.

It would be beneficial for me to find informations inside of my PDF documents that are saved in Joplin when I don’t know in which PDFs are the informations I look for.

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**Author:** ![dpoulton](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex028/user_avatar/discourse.joplinapp.org/dpoulton/32/29723_2.png) [@dpoulton](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/u/dpoulton)\
**Post date:** [1 March 2026 12:34 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/pdf-text-search/48894/2 "2026-03-01T12:34:54Z")

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Joplin already searches inside PDF files. If the text you have searched for is contained within a PDF attached to a note, that note appears in the notelist. At the top of the note a banner displays to tell you what attached file contains the text you are looking for and links to that file.

Is this not what you want?

![screenshot](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex028/uploads/cozic/original/3X/0/f/0f531a0d34a6b6a6e5974e4e77668efb5de92756.png)

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**Author:** ![simwai](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex028/user_avatar/discourse.joplinapp.org/simwai/32/28272_2.png) [@simwai](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/u/simwai)\
**Post date:** [1 March 2026 13:38 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/pdf-text-search/48894/3 "2026-03-01T13:38:08Z")

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Interesting, but then I wonder why I don’t find the PDF I look for. I always get 0 search results when I look for resource:application/pdf Result. I only get a search result when it is mentioned in the title. I use the Android app.

Seems like this feature is extendable if it already exists.

I don’t think the PDFs I have are mostly consisting of images/scans, because this could have been a reason for not finding what I want.

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**Author:** ![simwai](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex028/user_avatar/discourse.joplinapp.org/simwai/32/28272_2.png) [@simwai](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/u/simwai)\
**Post date:** [18 March 2026 05:27 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/pdf-text-search/48894/4 "2026-03-18T05:27:42Z")

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Should I open a bug report for that?