I have a 416 page, 53k word PDF document in DTPO. I selected a paragraph from the document and dragged it out into the side pane to create a new rich text note (side question: is there any way to make the new note automatically link to the original document? And for PDFs it would be great if it auto-linked to the page…). I selected a few words from the new note, right-clicked and chose “search selected text”, but the only result it gave me back was the new note. If I do an advanced search across all databases, same thing. But if I open the PDF directly in DTP and do a command+F find, it finds the phrase just fine.
The PDF document is not excluded from anything, nor is its parent group. The phrase is nothing special, just “powerful tools”. So I’m not sure what’s going on. Could really use some help.
Is the large PDF OCRd (kind is PDF+Text)? I am successful doing exactly what you describe as your goal. My test PDF appears in “search selected text results” and other search methods (the search box in the tool bar for a database, the global search, etc.). Are you able to get results with other PDFs and/or other search strings? Sometimes getting search results from long documents takes a while - not a huge while, but noticeable.
(Your other question: New note autolink to original – not an inbuilt feature, but easily scriptable - you might wish to post the idea to the scripting forum).
Pending the possibility of scripting as noted by korm, you might take a look at the ‘Annotation’ smart script in Data > New from Template. That script has a convenient keystroke shortcut and creates a new rich text note that automatically links to the selected document (PDF or other filetype). Copy the excerpt you wish to include in the rich text note and paste it into the new note.
You can also add the page link to your annotation note. Control-click o the thumbnail of the page from which you copied your excerpt and choose ‘Copy Page Link’, then paste that link into your annotation note. Now your note includes the name of the referenced document, a link to it and also a link to the page from which you excerpted the clipping.
Yes it is PDF+Text. It’s not a scanned & OCR’d doc though…just a published PDF.
Anyway I’ve narrowed it down a bit. It only seems to apply to documents from http://www.pragprog.com. Other documents search fine. It’s weird cause they’re not DRM’d
Bummer. I’ll email and see if they can do anything about it. Thanks for the help.