What is the difference between "Find" and "Search"

[bqxmprij]

Or, why are there two different functions? I was reading the post
Praise for multi-color search results https://forum.pdf-xchange.com/ ... 62&t=22627 and agree, great job. But, I couldn't get my copy of PDF-XChange Editor to look like that (of course, using Ctrl + F, it wouldn't).

After about 30 minutes of looking, I finally realized the issue. So, I tried the "Search" function and it works. And then I immediately wondered---why do two different functions exist when "Search" seems to encompass all of "Find" and then provide more options.

"Find" with Ctrl + F is, at least in my view, the standard way for searching in a document. Why not have Ctrl + F bring up a find box with an "Advanced" button to access the current "Search" features.

Maybe others would disagree. But after using "Search," I cannot see the reason for ever using "Find" again and I would prefer to use Crtl + F to bring up the search box.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

“Search” is when you look for something, and “Find” is when you figure out where it is

The fact that it took you 30 minutes to find the function supports my comment that this new search feature needs some explanation.

Many (most) users don't read the manual, and it's not included with the download. I was well aware of the Search Panel, but I expected the different colour highlighting to work with the Find feature too if finding more than one word, but it only seems to work with adjacent words.

In the Viewer, there is a button on the Find Toolbar to open the Search Panel.

Mostly, all I need is a simple find function in the active document, so I certainly would not want the Search Panel to open with Ctrl F. However, the shortcuts can be customised, so you can suit yourself. I believe the default is Ctrl Shift F for the Advanced Find (aka Search).

[David.P]

The fact that it took you 30 minutes to find the function supports my comment that this new search feature needs some explanation.

Bhikkhu, no -- the time it took bqxmprij to find the Search Panel does of course not support that comment of yours.

As you are aware, the Search Panel (aka "Advanced Search") has been there for years in the Editor, and before that for more years in the Viewer. So you surely can see that the new Color Highlighting feature has absolutely nothing to do with users possibly not finding the (good old) Advanced Search Panel.

I expected the different colour highlighting to work with the Find feature too if finding more than one word...

Yes, that's what it actually does.

...but it only seems to work with adjacent words.

Same here. The fact that the standard Find function only works with adjacent words has always been like that and has nothing to do with the new Color Highlighting feature.


Anyway, my suggestion would be to make the option setting called "Colored Search Results" in the standard Find Box:

...independent of the respecive same option setting "Colored Search Results" in the Advanced Search panel:

...for the following reason:

When searching for multiple words using the standard Find Box (which always means "find only adjacent words" aka phrases), one would possibly want the search results not to be colored because a) the colors do not give additonal information to the eye when (like here) searching for occurences of phrases, and because b) the colors can overlap each other and impair legibility, like can be seen in below screenshot:



At present however, the two options settings called "Colored Search Results" can't be set independently for "Advanced Search" and "Standard Find", which I think should be changed in order to perfect the "Search" and "Find" functions.

Keep up the great work

Regards David.P

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Dave, you're completely clueless about how ordinary users work.

You proposed this feature because using advanced proximity searching of many documents is something that you need. Most of us would rarely use such a feature. I usually just search the active document, and would only rarely open the Search panel if I didn't know which document to look in for a certain passage.

Ordinary users, searching for a phrase would be puzzled by the different colours. The advanced search options are too complicated for ordinary users to grasp without help, and by help I don't mean reading the manual, which of course they rarely do.

Power features are great for power users, but not so good if they obstruct ordinary users. I haven't had the time yet to investigate this feature thoroughly. When I have, I might have some proposals of my own.

[David.P]

You proposed this feature because using advanced proximity searching of many documents is something that you need.

Bhikkhu, how often must I repeat that I did NOT propose neither a) Advanced Search nor b) Proximity Search. These two have been present years before my proposal, even if you seem to did not know that. What I proposed was Mulit Color Highlighting as additional feature for the existing [!] Advanced Search Pane.

Don't blame me in case you did not know that Advanced Search and Proximity Search existed in the Editor long before I made the above poposal. And don't blame me for functions that (for you personally) seemingly are too complicated or unneeded. Just don't use them then. I have nothing to do with that.

Ordinary users, searching for a phrase would be puzzled by the different colours.

If you would read what I make considerable efforts to illustrate and write, you could see that I just before said that Multi Color Highlighting usually is NOT useful for the Standard Find Box:

...and therefore possibly should be deactivated there, even if activated in the Advanced Search Options.

The advanced search options are too complicated for ordinary users to grasp without help

Again, I have nothing to do (however are absoultely happy) with the fact that Advanced Search is present in the Editor (and has been present in the Viewer beforehand), and that seemingly you did not know it -- as you keep wrongly repeating that I did propose these features.

Power features are great for power users, but not so good if they obstruct ordinary users.

As we have seen, "ordinary users" (like you seem to designate yourself) don't even seem to find those "Power features"...

Since again I have nothing to do with the presence of a) Advanced Search or b) Proximity Search, I gather it is about time to refrain from your inapplicable accusations and rude language.

Regards David.P

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

You proposed this feature because using advanced proximity searching of many documents is something that you need.

I have nothing to do with the presence of a) Advanced Search or b) Proximity Search

That's not what I said, and you know it. What you proposed was this feature of multi-coloured highlighting, which is why you praise it so highly and defend it so passionately.

It makes you blind to the needs of ordinary users. I would class myself as an advanced user, but also an experienced support provider, which is why I know that ordinary users will not immediately figure out what the colour highlighting means or how to use it.

It is a great feature for power users, but it needs some refinement for easy of use and discoverability.

The first thing to fix is the gaudy colours. How this is going to work on a PDF that already has highlighting is something I need to investigate before proposing any improvements.

[David.P]

What you proposed was this feature of multi-color highlighting, which is why you praise it so highly and defend it so passionately.

No Bhikkhu. This new feature has been "praised" by bob_sun and the praise has been "agreed, great job" by bqxmprij. Then you chime in with criticism -- which is based on faulty resoning (yes, it IS erratic) like:

The fact that it took you 30 minutes to find the [Advanced Search] function supports my comment that this new search feature [Multi-Color Search Results] needs some explanation.

Again: the one (Multi-Color Search Results) has nothing to do with the other (finding the Advanced Search panel by "ordinary users"). And this is the reason why your above argument is flawed.

makes you blind

you're completely clueless

Just stop that.

I [am] an experienced support provider, which is why I know that ordinary users will not immediately figure out what the colour highlighting means or how to use it.

I suggest you first wait for those "ordinary users" starting to complain themselves -- before claiming to know that they will

I have already explained it twice and I willingly repeat it again: for the Standard Find Box:

...it is also my strong opinion to make it possible to disable Multi-Color Search Results separately from the same feature in the Advanced Search Pane.

Ordinary users will not immediately figure out what the colour highlighting means or how to use it.
It [-> Multi-Color Search Results] is a great feature for power users, but it [-> Advanced & Proximity Search] needs some refinement for easy of use and discoverability.

Again you're mixing up things and confusing everyone and yourself. What (possibly) needs "refinement for easy of use and discoverability" is Advanced & Proximity Search -- and this has NOTHING to do with the introduction of Multi-Color Search Results.

How this is going to work on a PDF that already has highlighting is something I need to investigate before proposing any improvements.

Yes. Please investigate first and then propose. Not the other way round.

In doing this you might notice the following:

Personal highlights vs. Multi-Color search results (status quo)

My suggestion for a possibly even better distinction between highlights and search results would look like this:

Personal highlights vs. italicized Multi-Color search results (suggestion)

However, I'm sure that there is other ways as well.

I can not emphasize enough again that (even before Multi-Color search results) speed and ease of use of both the Standard Find Box and the Advanced & Proximity Search Pane of PDF-XChange Editor have been the world's best for years already. PDF-XChange Editor additionally has been the first PDF software in the world where Proximity Search has been made a) easily usable, and b) was possible to use in single PDF documents at all.

If you want to see an advanced search function that is a) tediously slow, b) confusingly complicated, and c) unusable even for "advanced users", look no further than Adobe Reader (same with Acrobat Professional):


Any questions

Of course there will be refinements over time also to the Advanced Search of PDF-XChange Editor.

But you are lamenting on a very high level -- on the level of the undeniably best PDF search functions on the planet that have been available in PDF-XChange Editor for years. And this is true even WITHOUT Multi-Color Search Results.

Regards David.P

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

I [am] an experienced support provider, which is why I know that ordinary users will not immediately figure out what the colour highlighting means or how to use it.

I suggest you first wait for those "ordinary users" starting to complain themselves -- before claiming to know that they will

Just stop your ranting and condescending sarcasm, and stop claiming that I said what I did not.

We did not have to wait long for this thread to be started by a user, who had to spend 30 minutes to figure out what this feature was and how to use it.

If you need to explain with so many screen shots the feature must be flawed. Users should be able to work it out themselves by reading the menus, or some tooltips. You have obviously spent way too much time working on this, it is time for you to take a back seat and let Tracker support explain it.

[David.P]

We did not have to wait long for this thread to be started by a user, who had to spend 30 minutes to figure out what this feature was and how to use it.

I can't believe that you keep repeating your faulty argument over and over.

The fact that it took bqxmprij 30 minutes to find the Advanced Search Panel has NOTHING to do with the Multi-Colored Search Results feature. Nothing. It would have taken him the same 30 minutes to find the Advanced Search Panel without the Multi-Colored Search Results feature.

If you don't understand this simple logic, the entire discussion is futile, as is your continued inappropriate and insulting language.

Regards David.P

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Or, why are there two different functions? I was reading the post
Praise for multi-color search results https://forum.pdf-xchange.com/ ... 62&t=22627 and agree, great job. But, I couldn't get my copy of PDF-XChange Editor to look like that (of course, using Ctrl + F, it wouldn't).

QED

[David.P]

Again, since there seem to be unaccountable difficulties with -- I don't know what.

What bqxmprij was looking for but could not find was the Advanced Search Panel:



Initially, he only could find the Basic Find Box:


This problem of not finding the Search Panel as reported by bqxmprij has NOTHING to do with, and is NOT a problem of the Multi-Colored Search Results.

He simply could not find the Search Panel until after half an hour he saw that he had to press Ctrl+Shift+F instead of Ctrl+F to see what he wanted.

There has been NO problem with the Multi-Colored Search Results. In fact, the opposite is the case as can be seen from the posts of bqxmprij and bob_sun ("praise"/"killer app"/"great job").

Regards David.P

[bqxmprij]

Now that those two are done arguing about whatever they were arguing about, can an Admin chime in on the possibility of getting multi-colored Find results without a requirement that the words be adjacent to each other?

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi bqxmprij,

Absolutely! I personally like the idea, but I'm not the guy to say whether or not this can be done. I'll pass this to the Development team for consideration.

Bhikkhu and Davip - do either of you need one of us 'Tracker techies' to chime on anything? If so, please do let us know and highlight the points of concern.

Cheers,

[David.P]

Hi everyone,

... getting multi-colored Find results without a requirement that the words be adjacent to each other?

Absolutely! I personally like the idea

OK, now the take of the inoffical product manager for Multi Colored Search Results on this.

So what bqxmprij would like is that the Find Box:

...should provide multi-colored "Find" results -- however without that the found words have to be adjacent to each other (as it is the case at present).

This means in other words that the Find Box would have to use Proximity Search as well.

Therefore, the currently available options for the find box:

Find Box options

...would have to be extended to also include a Proximity setting, just like the Advanced Search Panel has:

Proximity setting

I'd say this is a good idea...

Initially, the Find Box Proximity setting could be set to "Words from the same Paragraph" -- because that should make most sense. If one wanted to search for an exact phrase of adjacent words, the search term can always be put in quotes.

Anyway, this is my 2 cents on bqxmprij's request.

Keep up the great work,
Cheers David.P

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi David,

Thanks for that - I'm not sure that this is something the Dev. Team would go for. One of the primary differences between the Find and Advanced searches, is exactly that.

I will obviously still pass this along, but I thought I'd give fair warning

[David.P]

Thank you Will,

One of the primary differences between the Find and Advanced searches, is exactly that.

Understood! That was actually also my first thought. Proximity search is THE core feature of Advanced Search -- and personally, I am happy with it like that.

Cheers David

[Will - Tracker Supp]

No worries

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Bhikkhu and Davip - do either of you need one of us 'Tracker techies' to chime on anything? If so, please do let us know and highlight the points of concern.

I have been too busy to look at this properly today, but I made a few screen shots comparing the highlighting in the Viewer with that in the Editor using the Find feature.

The gaudy colours need toning down to nice pastel shades, and I think the border aggravates the issue. In the Viewer, the highlighted found phrase has no border. There are also gaps between the words in the Editor.

I attach the screen shots that I made. The basic point is that the default Find feature should not be multi-coloured, or different to the Viewer.

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Thanks for your comments and suggestions Bhikkhu. I'll see that they are passed along.

Cheers,

[David.P]

Hi @all,

I agree that the Find Box (aka basic search) should a) only find adjacent words, b) should not give colored results (or make that optional, but seperately from the respective Advanced Search option), and that c) the Find Box results should be highlighted in one single highlight box, not as single words:

This (bottom row) is what default "Find" (Ctrl+F) produces at present when searching for multiple words:


This is (bottom row again) what I feel default "Find" results should look like instead:


What I really love is the general clear and sharp looks of the Find results highlights with the slightly rounded corners, and subtle borders. This looks incredibly clear and is good on the eyes in my view, also it helps to visually distinguish "Find" results highlights from personal highlights.


Something else that could be considered and possibly changed is the superposition aka Blend Mode of search results highlights and personal highlights. Currently this is what happens if you search for text that is already highlighted:



It would be great if the (temporary) search results highlights that are created by "Find" and/or "Search" could be overlayed (without transparency) over the former for better visibility, instead of being multiplied/blended with the existing personal highlight. Which is however probably difficult since the search results highlights still would have to be multiplied/blended with the actual text.

Keep up the great work,
Cheers David.P

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hi David,

You can turn the coloured search results for the simple search, but indeed this will affect the advanced options as well.

the second point for the search result falling over another highlight is also good, but as you've noticed - there is a lot of blending happening there and it might be indeed hard to only show the search result highlight at that time. I will have a word with the devs on that.

Regards,
Stefan

[David.P]

Thank you Stefan for your reply,

You can turn the coloured search results for the simple search, but indeed this will affect the advanced options as well.

Yes that is true, however I think it would be optimal if the multi-colored results option could be set separately for "Search" and "Find".

This is since I also feel that "Find" makes more sense without the highlighting of separate words and/or usage of different colors -- while the different colors of course are extremely useful and absolutely amazing when working with Advanced Search.

When using "Find" for example, the following can be a possible (suboptimal, since rather confusing) search result when searching for multiple words:


...while this is what I would expect when using "Find":


Of course I can always put the search phrase into quotes and get the result in the second screenshot.

Note that the Viewer always produces results similar to the second screenshot -- even when using the same search words but in a different order, which is great.

Anyway, it does not seem to yield additional information (but can be confusing to the eye instead) when words that are adjacent anyway (as it is always the case with "Find") receive different color highlights, or are marked with separate highlight boxes, as Bhikkhu also has pointed out.

Don't get me wrong, the Multi-Color-Highlight feature for Advanced Search is an absolute killer feature that has already made research in my typical 500 to 1,500 pages legal documents so much easier, faster and less strenuous.

Regards David.P

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi David,

I've been playing around with this here and I can see what you mean. To my mind, the Find tool should highlight words monochromatically and there should be no border around the words.

I'll talk to the Dev. Team and will see what can be done.

Cheers,

[David.P]

Thank you very much Will

I'm not sure that this [proximity search in the Find box] is something the Dev. Team would go for. One of the primary differences between the Find and Advanced searches, is exactly [proximity search].

Oops, another quick take on this. Since I'm basically working with PDF-XChange Editor all day long, the experiences and ideas just continually come flowing

Other than I thought before, there is one situation where having proximity search:

...would be useful also in the basic Find box.

For example imagine I am reading a 500 pages PDF document and I am on page 237. There, I decide that I need to know which is the very NEXT occurrence of a certain idea in my document (the idea for example being characterized by the words "jumps", "fox" and "brown").

Of course, "Advanced Search" gives me all the occurrences where the words "jumps", "fox" and "brown" occur in the same paragraph, in about half a second (this feature alone makes PDF-XChange Editor worth being weighted down in gold). However from "Advanced Search", it is not so easy to tell which simply is the next occurrence of such a paragraph --- starting from the current page.

Therefore, the possibility of of using Proximity Search also in the "Find" box would bring about additional functionality that even Advanced Search does not offer.

The above just for completeness regarding the argumentation of whether proximity search is useful or not as an option for the "Find" box

Cheers David.P

[Vasyl-Tracker Dev Team]

Hi All.

Firstly many thanks for all for interesting discussion, for your all suggestions and comments. Too many emotions in some moments, but...

Some my comments and suggestions:

----------

A.
In the future we can add the Proximity feature for simple Find. It is not a big deal. And Proximity=="AdjacentWords" should be by default, for typical usage.

----------

B.
About colored results. In the near future we can add two different options:
ColoredFindRes (=false by default)
ColoredSearchRes (=false by default)

Currently is one option for both places(FindBox and SearchPane).

----------

C.

The Find Box results should be highlighted in one single highlight box, not as single words.

It will be incorrect for Proximity!="AdjacentWords" cases. Another problem will be when you specified the multiple words in search term and enabled "Colored Results" option. Note: you may get one highlight-box when you put all words to quote-brakets, but it will find words in the same order only, as in search term.
In any case I don't see here any big problem with "highlight each found word separately" behavior. May be I'm wrong...

----------

D.
In the near future we will improve the Find Feature UI. You will be able to customize it onto toolbars. And the hotlink to "Full Search" feature will be added to Find Box(thanks for Bhikkhu).

----------

E.

The gaudy colours need toning down to nice pastel shades, and I think the border aggravates the issue. In the Viewer, the highlighted found phrase has no border. There are also gaps between the words in the Editor.

We can slightly reduce saturation of colors but not so much because it must be conspicuous for user. And we have border for found words in editor because we must have a way for additionaly highlight of current/selected entry (note: editor is different than viewer, because highlights all found entries, not selected only). Is the method that we using currently, it is not ideal but works. In future we can try to find more user-frienly method to mark selected entry (maybe some kind of animation)..

----------

May be I missed something...


Best
Regards.

[Vasyl-Tracker Dev Team]

In any case I don't see here any big problem with "highlight each found word separately" behavior. May be I'm wrong...

Hmm.. may be you are right, Bhikkhu and David - in simple cases for Simple Find - it is more usable to show only one highlight box for all words in entry...
We will think more about it...

Thanks.

[David.P]

Thank you very much Vasyl, for personally outlining the view also of the development team.

A.
In the future we can add the Proximity feature for simple Find. It is not a big deal. And Proximity=="AdjacentWords" should be by default, for typical usage.

That would be great, and I agree with the default setting "AdjacentWords" for Proximity in Simple Find.

B.
About colored results. In the near future we can add two different options:
ColoredFindRes (=false by default)
ColoredSearchRes (=false by default)

Currently is one option for both places (FindBox and SearchPane).

Yes, it would be very good to be able to set the Colored Search Results option separately in "Find" and "Search".

While as you know I am enthusiastic about the new feature ColoredSearchRes in Advanced Search, and while I am sure that everyone will love it there, I agree with setting the default to "ColoredSearchRes=false" -- because this will keep (your and my) competitors from too easily discovering this groundbreaking feature which is literally worth gold

C.

The Find Box results should be highlighted in one single highlight box, not as single words.

In any case I don't see here any big problem with "highlight each found word separately" behavior. May be I'm wrong...

Hmm.. may be you are right, Bhikkhu and David - in simple cases for Simple Find - it is more usable to show only one highlight box for all words in entry...
We will think more about it...

Thank you also for considering the single highlight box for Simple Find (provided proximity is set to "AdjacentWords" of course).

D.
In the near future we will improve the Find Feature UI. You will be able to customize it onto toolbars.

This is fantastic since the customization option of the Find Box has been missed by quite a few users, after having switched to the Editor from the Viewer.

And the hotlink to "Full Search" feature will be added to Find Box (thanks for Bhikkhu).

Very good!

Possibly this hotlink feature could be set up in such a way that it also works the other way round, i.e. if you first use Advanced Search, and then open Simple Find, the Simple Find Box could also be auto-populated with the search terms from the current Advanced Search (e.g. for easier finding the next occurrence of the current search term from your current page view).

Alternatively and/or additionally, both "Find" and "Search" could be auto-populated with any currently selected text from the document.

It would also be great if the contents of the "Search" and "Find" search text input boxes, respectively, would be auto-selected as soon as you click inside one of these input boxes. This way, you would not have to manually delete the previous search text before you can enter new search text, especially useful if the search text that you had used for the previous search was longer than the "Search" or "Find" search text input boxes, and therefore is a little hard to select completely.

We can slightly reduce saturation of colors but not so much because it must be conspicuous for user. And we have border for found words in editor because we must have a way for additionally highlight of current/selected entry.

Personally I think that the colors are beautiful and already very good for the first iteration of this feature. Only the second color (purple) maybe could be made a little lighter.

Also, the different widths of the box borders for non-selected and selected "Find" entries is well-thought-out and looks beautiful and exceptionally clear to the eye in my view:

In future we can try to find more user-frienly method to mark selected entry (maybe some kind of animation).

Honestly, I think animation would be too much on the eye (this can be tried out in Microsoft Word with the different animations available under Character Formatting -- which no one ever uses for good reason...)

Here's another idea...


Anyway, as always, the response and support quality that you are providing at Tracker Software is unparalleled.

Best regards
David.P

[John - Tracker Supp]

Thanks - so lets leave Vasyl and the rest of the team to chew on this and see what can be done ...

Thanks for your patience.

[ssdc services corp]

In any case I don't see here any big problem with "highlight each found word separately" behavior. May be I'm wrong...

Hmm.. may be you are right, Bhikkhu and David - in simple cases for Simple Find - it is more usable to show only one highlight box for all words in entry...
We will think more about it...

I think I would prefer a single box/single color by default when I am searching for a phrase.

At 100% zoom this is too cluttered and difficult to read: http://i.imgur.com/AWDhQK0.png

[David.P]

Thanks - so lets leave Vasyl and the rest of the team to chew on this and see what can be done...
Thanks for your patience.

No worries

[Will - Tracker Supp]

ssdc services corp - thanks for input! We'll take this into consideration!

[refract]

I have reviewed this thread and think I know the difference between FindBox and SearchPane.

Here is my problem. I have 230 documents in a folder. In a recent search I got 178 documents and 1,967 entries. The "completed" search window shows each hit with the searched term in yellow highlight plus the name of the document and up to a dozen associated words to give context. The search window also shows the actual document page. Click the "hit" and bingo: the needed words are highlighted in the document.

This is terrific and far beyond what I imagined Editor could do back when I purchased Viewer. However, there is a downside. When I click through the instances (hits) I inevitably come to a page now and then where the needed word is NOT highlighted.

So while on this page I clicked the Find Box and typed in the needed word. Bingo: "Find" highlighted what "Search" indicated was there, but failed to highlight.

I thought I had a fine workaround, but every now and then I come to a page where neither Search or Find can highlight the word right there on the page. They both appear to know it is there, but they forgot how to highlight. This happens maybe one out of ten pages. I think the descriptive word is intermittent.

Window 10, i5, 6 GB memory, and Editor works marvelously otherwise.

What is going on.

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi refract,

Thanks for the post - please check that you do not have both set to be Case Sensitive (unless otherwise desired), as this would force only e.g. "THE" to be found, not "the" or "The" or "tHe", etc.

Also, please check you proximity settings, in the Advanced Search Pane, to make sure that some results are not being excluded based on proximity.

Thanks,

[refract]

>check that you do not have both set to be Case Sensitive
>(unless otherwise desired), as this would force only e.g.
>"THE" to be found, not "the" or "The" or "tHe", etc.

>Also, please check you proximity settings, in the Advanced
>Search Pane, to make sure that some results are not
>being excluded based on proximity.

I have 230 documents in the "Where would you like to search"
I searched for "vaccine" and Search offered up 178 documents with 1,967 hits.
I started clicking down the hits and as I did, the page would be shown with the search term highlighted.
As I worked down the search list, I occasionally found that the page would come up, but the term was not lighted.
So I left everything as it was and clicked in the Find function.
When I used Find, the word that Search had not highlighted became highlighted.

So I had a work-around and could get on with my work (or so I thought).

Then as I worked my way down the Search pane list, I could use Find to highlight the term on each page that Search had given me but failed to highlight.

That is until I arrived at a page where I could not get the highlight using both Search and Find.

To add to the confusion, I sometimes went on past the Search hit page to a further along page and observed that Search did indeed highlight. If I came to a hit page and Search had not highlighted, Find would help---but not always. There is no rhyme nor reason. I guess I could say that Search gave me 1,967 hits and highlighted about 90% of them. Find would highlight another 8% or so. The remaining 2% of pages I had to read from top to bottom to discover the hit that Search gave me.

Admittedly, these are musty old documents. However, if your built in OCR function identifies words and Search then discovers them, it should also highlight every single one of them.

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi refract,

Thanks for the post, but I'm a little confused - you did not answer any of my questions. Please do answer my questions, as even if your settings are not the cause, I will still to know them for testing purposes.

Thanks,

[refract]

>Please do answer my questions, as even if your
>settings are not the cause, I will still to know
>them for testing purposes.

Sorry, but I can't see any questions for question marks in your earlier response. I'm guessing you are referring to your suggestions so I will comment on those.

>check that you do not have both set to be Case Sensitive
>(unless otherwise desired), as this would force only e.g.
>"THE" to be found, not "the" or "The" or "tHe", etc.

Not an issue.

>Also, please check you proximity settings, in the Advanced
>Search Pane, to make sure that some results are not
>being excluded based on proximity.

Not an issue either. I am getting Search results---all of them. I am not getting reliable highlighting.

There seems no real reason to check any of what you mention. I set up my search in the Search pane. It returns the long list of "hits". I then click the hits and observe that only SOME of the hits are highlighted in the document page. "Find" can highlight some additional instances, but not 100% of the time. Now and then it fails to do so.

If I could create a screenshot and prove to you that certain "hits" in the Search pane were not appropriately highlighted in the associated page, you just might say "OMG, there is a flaw in the Search highlighting process."

That is as good as I can explain it. Search works great. Appropriate highlighting is hit or miss.

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi refract,

I don't quite understand the sarcastic and difficult element to your posts - I'm just attempting to gather information for the investigation...

It is quite clear that I was asking you to check your settings and responses such as the following, do not help me or you, in any way:

Sorry, but I can't see any questions for question marks in your earlier response. I'm guessing you are referring to your suggestions so I will comment on those.

And responses that contain no details do not help either:

Not an issue.

If I could create a screenshot and prove to you that certain "hits" in the Search pane were not appropriately highlighted in the associated page, you just might say "OMG, there is a flaw in the Search highlighting process."

I don't understand this either. I'm not attempting to deflect any blame or issue, I'm simply trying to gather information so that I can help. I have no issues with this here, so I need all information that might be relevant and, with all due respect, it is up to the support staff and the development team, to determine what is relevant to our investigation.

With that in mind, please do provide all of the following:

- Screen-shots of the issue.
- A small set of sample documents. These can either be uploaded here, emailed to us at support@pdf-xchange.com, or uploaded to our public FTP:
https://www.pdf-xchange.com/knowledgeba ... FTP-server
- Please also provide screen-shots of your Advanced Search settings, so that we can test using the same settings as yourself.

Thank you.

[refract]

> I don't quite understand the sarcastic
> and difficult element to your posts

Sorry, my frustration must be expressing as sarcasm.

Let's let it go. Someone there will probably bump into what I have tried to explain and fix it. I will keep my maintenance fee paid so some future upgrade will make my "not all the search results are highlighting" a non-issue.

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi refract,

No problem - we'll attempt to investigate further here, but as yet I've not had any luck myself.

Thanks,