SERVICE - OUTLOOK SEARCH NOT WORKING ON PDF DOCUMENTS

Question

SERVICE - OUTLOOK SEARCH NOT WORKING ON PDF DOCUMENTS

Maree Mills 1

The Outlook Search function is not finding words or numbers that are contained in PDF documents in emails but will locate them in Excel Files. This function use to work until we upgraded to Microsoft 365 (and had a new harddrive put in) Most answers in the community seem quite old and understand it may have something to do with iFilter and my version of Acrobat/Adobe. Any assistance greatly appreciated.

Sajeer Hajib 31 Reputation points

2022-09-12T12:44:04.347+00:00

OUTLOOK SEARCH NOT WORKING ON PDF DOCUMENTS

Iam using Microsoft Office professional plus 2016, Still I cant search content inside the pdf attachments. I try word and excel, that are searching fine. Only the pdf has an issue. Note that PDF I search attachment content are not a scanned type pdf file. Kindly ping me if you have any solution. I rebuilt the pst, Uninstall & reinstall also done: what are possibilities i try my side. Kindly plz help me to sort out this issue

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Sajeer Hajib 31 Reputation points

2022-09-12T12:44:04.347+00:00

OUTLOOK SEARCH NOT WORKING ON PDF DOCUMENTS

Iam using Microsoft Office professional plus 2016, Still I cant search content inside the pdf attachments. I try word and excel, that are searching fine. Only the pdf has an issue. Note that PDF I search attachment content are not a scanned type pdf file. Kindly ping me if you have any solution. I rebuilt the pst, Uninstall & reinstall also done: what are possibilities i try my side. Kindly plz help me to sort out this issue

Answer 1

Jade Liang-MSFT 9,986 Microsoft Employee

Hi @Maree Mills ,

Welcome to Q&A forum!

What's the type of your account(pop, imap or exchange), and what's the sepcific version of your client(File>Office account>About Outlook)? Did this issue occur on any specific PDF file or all PDF file in your Outlook messages.

In order to further confirm if the issue is related to your client, if it's possible, please try to search on your web mail to check if it could work normally there, and if you are working with exchange account in cached mode, it's recommended to switch to online mode to test.

If you could search normally in your web mail, the issue may be related to your Outlook client. According to my tests on Outlook 365 Version 2106 (Build 14131.20278), I could search the message with a PDF attachment that contains the main characters"abcd" like below, due to I haven't installed a 3rd-party PDF perviewer tool, I opened this file in edge:

Please kindly check if my steps have any differences with yours, if the issue still exists after you performed the same tests, considering corrupted search index may cause it, it's recommended to rebuild your search index to check if the issue has any differences after that(Control Panel>Indexing Options>Advanced>Rebuild>OK>Close).

If your issue has any update, please feel free to post back.

If the response is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.
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Jade Liang-MSFT 9,986 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2021-07-12T01:36:31.177+00:00

Hi @Maree Mills ,
Does this issue have any updates? If it has been resolved, please click "Accept as answer" to mark useful post or share your solution, your action would benefit others who have similar issues. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please feel free to post back. Thanks!
Maree Mills 1 Reputation point

2021-07-12T19:02:53.263+00:00

No luck unfortunately ... I am a POP user and this occurs on all emails received by myself that have PDF attachments. WEb mail is also not able to locate documents. I have upgraded my ADOBE and rebuilt my Indexing options but it still doesnt work. Any help greatly appreciated.
Jade Liang-MSFT 9,986 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2021-07-14T08:24:08.817+00:00

Hi @Maree Mills ,

Thanks for your update, please kindly understand here we mainly focus on general issues on Outlook desktop client , considering the issue could be reproduced on your web mail, the issue may be more related to your mailbox instead of Outlook desktop client, and some troubleshooting methods in Outlook may not affect it(such as rebuild windows search index etc.), in this case, it's recommended to contact your mailbox administrator or account support directly to check if there are any searching issues on your mailbox.
Maree Mills 1 Reputation point

2021-07-14T10:25:14.663+00:00

Microsoft themselves are telling me that Outlook does not have the capability to search for words or numbers within PDF attachments which is why I came to the community. Very frustrated right now.
Jade Liang-MSFT 9,986 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2021-07-15T08:33:16.163+00:00

Hi @Maree Mills ,

Thanks for your reply, and sorry for inconvenience caused to you. I'm still researching it with you.

Due to I could search the pdf file normally on my outlook client and outlook web mail, it seems to I couldn't reproduce your issue with my account. In order to avoid the impact caused by our different accounts, if possible, could you please add a outlook.com account on your Outlook and test there? According to my tests, it always could work normally in outlook.com account on outlook client and web mail.

Also, have you checked the client version with mine? In order to further research your issue and perform more relevant tests on my environment, could your please provide us with your specific client version?
Maree Mills 1 Reputation point

2021-07-15T09:11:52.157+00:00

Yes, using that method it locates the numbers and words in a PDF. What does that tell you about my desktop OUtlook that we use daily ?
Jade Liang-MSFT 9,986 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2021-07-15T09:40:50.627+00:00

Hi @Maree Mills ,

About Outlook version, I just would like to perform more targeted tests with same Outlook client version with yours.

However, according to your description, I noticed that you could search normally when you add the outlook.com account in your Outlook client, is it right? If so, it further confirms that the issue may be related to your account itself as I mentioned above, it's recommended to contact your mailbox administrator to check your mailbox.
Sajeer Hajib 31 Reputation points

2023-01-11T10:53:58.8766667+00:00

Hi All,

I have installed PDF I FILTER software; search content inside the PDF is working in Outlook attachments . After installing the software ; again indexing need to be done. After that content search was working fine and I can search the content inside pdf . Download PDFiFilter application from below link. 100% sure it will work.

https://download.adobe.com/pub/adobe/acrobat/win/9.x/PDFiFilter64installer.zip

Solution - Outlook is not working on PDF Documents.pdf

Regards

Sajeer Hajib

IT Infrastructure Engineer

sajeerhajib@gmail.com
Saifa Beevisaifudeen(UST,IN) 5 Reputation points

2023-01-11T11:17:31.45+00:00

Thanks Sajeer, this works when I tried after installing pdf iFilter application.

Answer 2

adminbot suburban 0

I'm also facing same issue in Client machine. and in my local system i can find Text easily in pdf through outlook.

i did not installed pdf previewer tool in my local system and its working fine please find the below image of pdf option in my local system indexing image.

please give some suggestion how should i find pdf in Client machine or how should i make pdf option as Reader search handler ?

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SERVICE - OUTLOOK SEARCH NOT WORKING ON PDF DOCUMENTS

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