How to search inside PDFs with Windows Search?

IFilters allow Windows Search to search within file contents.

Here are three popular PDF IFilters^†:

After installing one, you should be able to search within PDF files in the same way that you can for other types of files.

PDF Filter

_{†:This article from 2009 has performance numbers, but they may not apply to current versions of the filters.}

An alternative way to search through PDFs is to use the search function of PDF-XChange Viewer. It does not need indexing neither. This is my choice.

You can install the portable version. Hit Ctrl Shift F to get the search dialog:

Search PDF in PDF-Viewer

You can use Mendeley; it's free.

First, add your PDF files and index them. After that, you can search them with auto-complete search.

You can also add notes on the PDF files with it.
If you have a lot a lot PDF files, sometimes RAM overflows when you try to index if this happen, just decrease count of PDF files.
Be careful, Mendeley actually is an academic program for reference system (yes, also you can use it for adding references to your Word document. I used it when I wrote my PHd Thesis; it was wonderful), so it will try to upload your PDF files to its server. If you want to work offline, change Mendeley's internet options and give it a wrong/offline proxy IP (like 127.3.0.1) . Then you can work with it off-line. NOT: You can also search in HTML or word files with Mendeley.

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