Find text with findTextAsync in JavaScript PDF Viewer

13 Feb 20263 minutes to read

The findTextAsync method searches for a string or array of strings asynchronously and returns bounding rectangles for each match. Use it to locate text positions across the document or on a specific page.

Here is an example of how to use findTextAsync:

Example 1: Search for a single string (‘pdf’) case-insensitively across all pages

 <button id="findText">Find Text</button>
 <button id="findTexts">Find Texts</button>

var pdfviewer = new ej.pdfviewer.PdfViewer({
  documentPath: 'https://cdn.syncfusion.com/content/pdf/pdf-succinctly.pdf',
  resourceUrl: "https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/31.2.2/dist/ej2-pdfviewer-lib",
});
ej.pdfviewer.PdfViewer.Inject(ej.pdfviewer.TextSelection, ej.pdfviewer.TextSearch, ej.pdfviewer.Print, ej.pdfviewer.Navigation, ej.pdfviewer.Toolbar,
  ej.pdfviewer.Magnification, ej.pdfviewer.Annotation, ej.pdfviewer.FormDesigner, ej.pdfviewer.FormFields, ej.pdfviewer.PageOrganizer);
  pdfviewer.appendTo('#PdfViewer');

document.getElementById('findText').addEventListener('click', function () {
  pdfviewer.textSearchModule.findTextAsync('pdf', false).then(res => {
      console.log(res);  // Logs the search result for the term 'pdf'
  });
});

Example 2: Search for multiple strings ([‘pdf’, ‘the’]) case-insensitively across all pages

document.getElementById('findTexts').addEventListener('click', function () {
  pdfviewer.textSearchModule.findTextAsync(['pdf', 'the'], false).then(res => {
      console.log(res);  // Logs the search result for the terms 'pdf' and 'the'
  });
});

Description

The findTextAsync method performs an asynchronous text search within a PDF document. It returns a Promise that resolves with an array of result objects describing each match. Each match object contains information such as the page index and the bounding rectangles for the matched text, which can be used to highlight or navigate to occurrences. By default, the search runs across all pages; supply the optional pageIndex parameter to limit the search to a specific page.

Parameters

**text (string

string[]):** The text or array of texts to search for in the document.

matchCase (boolean): Whether the search is case-sensitive. true matches exact case; false ignores case.

pageIndex (optional, number): Zero-based page index to search. If omitted, searches all pages.

Example workflow

findTextAsync(‘pdf’, false):
This will search for the term “pdf” in a case-insensitive manner across all pages of the document.

findTextAsync([‘pdf’, ‘the’], false):
This will search for the terms “pdf” and “the” in a case-insensitive manner across all pages of the document.

findTextAsync(‘pdf’, false, 0):
This will search for the term “pdf” in a case-insensitive manner only on the first page (page 0).

findTextAsync([‘pdf’, ‘the’], false, 1):
This will search for the terms “pdf” and “the” in a case-insensitive manner only on the second page (page 1).

View sample in GitHub