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Using Search to locate a particular spot in the document
If your document doesn’t have bookmarks (and not all PDF files do), you can
use the Adobe Reader (Full version only) Search function to search for a
heading, key term, or identifying phrase. To search for text with the Search
feature, click the Search button in the File toolbar or choose Edit➪Search to
open the Search PDF pane in the How To window. Enter the word or phrase
you want to locate in the document in the What Word or Phrase Would You
Like to Search For? text box in the Search PDF pane, and then click the Search
button or press Enter to search for it in the document. The program then
scans the entire document and displays the results in a list box. The word or
phrase is highlighted in each occurrence in the Results list, and you can then
click the highlighted term to highlight and move to that occurrence in the
document. If no matching text is located, you receive a warning dialog box
indicating that this is the case.
To find subsequent occurrences after you close the Search dialog box, press
Ctrl+G (Ô+G on the Mac). You can use this keystroke shortcut until you reach
the final occurrence of the term in the document, at which point the command
stops working.
To narrow your search by preventing Adobe Reader from finding matches for
your search text within other, longer words (such as the occurrence of her in
the word whether), select the Match Whole Words Only check box in the
Search PDF pane before you begin the search. To narrow your search to exact
case matches, select the Match Case check box. To search for a term in the
Bookmarks or Comments in a PDF file, check the appropriate check boxes.
The Search PDF pane also provides two radio buttons that specify where you
would like to perform your search. Select the In the Current PDF Document
radio button to search the document displayed in the document window or
select the All PDF Documents In radio button and then choose a location on
your computer or LAN (Local Area Network). You can even select the Search
PDFs on the Internet link at the bottom of the pane to perform your search on
the Internet. This feature is powered by Google, the well-known Internet
search engine, but keep in mind that you are searching across all PDF docu-
ments on the Internet, so the time it takes to perform your search depends
on your Internet connection speed. For more information on the Adobe
Reader/Acrobat 6 Search feature, see Chapter 13.
Perusing PDF Files in Acrobat 6
It should come as little or no surprise to discover that viewing PDF files in
Adobe Acrobat 6 is no different from viewing them in Adobe Reader. After all,
the free, giveaway Adobe Reader is simply a trimmed-down version of the
full-fledged, must-be-purchased Acrobat 6, lacking all Acrobat’s editing tools
(they being what you pay for) but none of the browsing tools.
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Part I: Presenting Acrobat and PDF Files