Can't see PDF contents as well as Google does

[Stephen Tashi]

There are some PDF files where Google finds keywords, but when I open the link Google gives, the PDF isn't searchable by any tools I've tried ( such as the search feature of Firefox). If I save the PDF to a file, I can't search it with the linux commands grep and pdfgrep.

Example: http://www.rld.state.nm.us/uploads/...d5a3b8f137/Recent_Liquor_License_Sales_19.pdf

Is Google finding keywords in some source different than the PDF?

 

[jtbell]

I opened your example file in my (paid) Acrobat Pro, and tried to search for a word in it. It contains scanned images with no actual text. In order to do a text search, you have to run OCR software on it to extract the text. Acrobat Pro can do this, and then it can search for text (e.g. "Albuquerque" which I tried just now).

Apparently Google does OCR on scanned documents in PDFs.

[added] My website has some files which I scanned and converted to PDF without doing OCR on them. I've just now verified that Google can find text strings in them. For example, searching for "rapid rider special" (with quotes) gives me

where the searched-for text is upside down (!) at the bottom right of the first page of the PDF.

 

[Stephen Tashi]

Can you find the word "Mariah" in the PDF? In my Google search, Google quoted that word in the excerpt it gave with the link, but I don't see the word as an image.

 

[jtbell]

It's on page 7, line 4. That's the only occurrence in the document.