If an item isn't being indexed (e.g., if it is not showing up in an 'Everything' Quick Search), verify that the item has searchable text and that the text is properly stored in the PDF (e.g., try to copy text out of the document and ensure that it is high quality).

You can check the index status of any PDF attachment by selecting the attachment item in the Zotero library and looking at the “Indexed:” field in the right pane.

You can remove indexed text with the “Clear Index…” button or re-create the index from scratch using the “Rebuild Index…” button. Indexing happens automatically in the background when Zotero is idle.

You can control how much text in a PDF is indexed in the Search pane of Zotero preferences (default: 500000 characters, 100 pages). If this option is selected and “Match” is set to “all”, parent/child items will still show up if just part of the criteria is met by the parent item and the other part by a child item.įull-text PDF indexing allows embedded text within PDFs to be searched with Quick Search (via the “Everything” option) and Advanced Search (via “Attachment Content”). To match search criteria against both parent items and their children, check “Include parent and child items of matching items”. To hide non-matching parent items with child items that do match the search criteria, and to collapse matching parent items with matching child items, check “Show only top-level items”. To include items in subcollections of matching collections in the search results, check “Search subcollections”. You can filter items by the collections or saved searches they belong to by searching by “Collection”. To change the search so that all items matching at least one criterion are returned, change the “Match” option to “any”. It is not currently possible to search in multiple libraries at one time.īy default, items only show up in the search results if they satisfy all search criteria. Set the library to search in by using the “Search in libary:” option at the top of the window.

Multiple filters can be set up by clicking the plus button. In this window, you can filter items by the content of specific fields or by other properties, like item type or the collection an item belongs to. To open the Advanced Search window, click on the magnifying glass icon ( ) at the top of the center pane.

Everything search file contents