Text Search

Foxit PDF SDK for Android provides in-document text search through the Core SDK, supporting PDF documents (including XFA), individual text pages, and annotation appearances. Results include page index, character range, rectangles, and matching sentence.

Built-in search in UI Extensions

If you use the full reader (UI Extensions), text search is built in. Users open the search panel from the toolbar with keyword input, case sensitivity, whole word, result highlighting, and prev/next navigation. No extra code is required.

Core Classes

Class	Description
TextSearch	Text search engine; construct from PDFDoc, XFADoc, TextPage, or Annot
SearchCancelCallback	Search cancel callback; override needToCancelNow() to abort during search

Search Flag Constants

Set matching rules with setSearchFlags(int flags); combine with bitwise OR:

Constant	Value	Description
e_SearchNormal	0x00	Default; case insensitive
e_SearchMatchCase	0x01	Match case
e_SearchMatchWholeWord	0x02	Whole word
e_SearchConsecutive	0x04	Continue from character after last match
e_SearchNotMatchFullWidth	0x20	Do not match full-width characters

Example: Search in a Document

import com.foxit.sdk.pdf.PDFDoc;
import com.foxit.sdk.pdf.TextPage;
import com.foxit.sdk.pdf.TextSearch;
import com.foxit.sdk.common.fxcrt.RectFArray;

PDFDoc doc = new PDFDoc("path/to/Sample.pdf");
doc.load(null);

TextSearch textSearch = new TextSearch(doc, null, TextPage.e_ParseTextNormal);
textSearch.setStartPage(0);
textSearch.setPattern("foxit");
textSearch.setSearchFlags(TextSearch.e_SearchMatchCase | TextSearch.e_SearchMatchWholeWord);

while (textSearch.findNext()) {
    int pageIndex = textSearch.getMatchPageIndex();
    int startChar = textSearch.getMatchStartCharIndex();
    int endChar = textSearch.getMatchEndCharIndex();
    RectFArray rects = textSearch.getMatchRects();
    String sentence = textSearch.getMatchSentence();
}

Example: Search in Annotation Appearance

import com.foxit.sdk.pdf.TextSearch;
import com.foxit.sdk.pdf.annots.Annot;

Annot annot = page.getAnnot(0);
TextSearch textSearch = new TextSearch(annot);
textSearch.setPattern("keyword");
textSearch.setSearchFlags(TextSearch.e_SearchNormal);

while (textSearch.findNext()) {
    RectFArray rects = textSearch.getMatchRects();
}

Example: Cancel Callback

SearchCancelCallback cancelCallback = new SearchCancelCallback() {
    @Override
    public boolean needToCancelNow() {
        return shouldCancel;
    }
};
TextSearch textSearch = new TextSearch(doc, cancelCallback, TextPage.e_ParseTextNormal);

Note

To index and search multiple PDFs in an offline directory, see Indexed Full-Text Search.

API Reference

See the API Reference for full TextSearch and SearchCancelCallback documentation.