Windows 11 Windows Search not searching or Indexing PDFs

Anonymous
2022-03-08T18:08:05+00:00

Brand new Dell XPS laptop with Windows 11. It will not search text within PDF files. From looking on the internet seems like there are lots of problems Windows Search in Windows 11 which did not exist in Windows 10. Including not searching/indexing contents of PDF files, which is critical for me.

Has ANYONE been able to search within PDF files on Windows 11?

Please don't suggest re-indexing, have done 6 or 7 times. And, yes indexing settings are set to index contents of PDF files.

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Files, folders, and storage

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Anonymous
2022-12-29T09:22:06+00:00

PDF Indexing is working on Windows 11 (even with the standard PDF indexer), however, you can only search for file contents via File Explorer and not via Search / Taskbar Search.

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-03-12T03:41:25+00:00

    Hi MattBK,

    Sorry I misunderstood you.

    You can open the relevant settings in the Search Options, as shown below (if your explorer does not have "Search options", you can try any search, and the option will appear above the search results).

    I wish the above will be helpful to you. Please feel free to let me know how it goes, and I will do my best to help you.

    Best Regards,

    Mosken - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-03-14T01:56:13+00:00

    But this does not work, for PDFs. That was the point of my original post. PDF content searching has been possible in Explorer for many, many years. It does work on at least some other file types (like docx). Now, based on other postings, it seems to be broken in Windows 11. Still works fine on my Windows 10 machine.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-03-15T19:23:56+00:00

    I just want to highlight this exact point, as I am experiencing the same problems: Any standard solutions which are recommended everywhere are just not working. It's a windows 11 specific problem and it's an absolut shame, that it is not even recognised.

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-03-16T14:45:14+00:00

    Enormously frustrating that Microsoft does not even recognize this critical defect as an issue.

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