PDF Searcher

README.md

Interactive PDF Searcher

Use this tool to quickly search PDFs:

It continuously asks for a search query and then asks you for a search result to open in a PDF reader.

Installation

This tool requires the following:

• Linux (Or WSL with X)
• Evince PDF Reader

Install by copying executable to somewhere inside your PATH:

url=https://gist.githubusercontent.com/MatthewScholefield/f66510ca7ff5818ea343ec65fdf10f8a/raw/pdf-searcher
curl "$url" | sudo tee /usr/local/bin/pdf-searcher
sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/pdf-searcher

Usage

Run pdf-searcher in a folder that contains PDFs. Search results are case insensitive.

pdf-searcher

#!/usr/bin/env bash

while echo "Enter a search:" && read -e -p "> " line; do
    history -s "$line"
    echo "Searching for '$line'..."
    {
        IFS=$'\n'
        rows=$(pdfgrep -RnFi "$line" . --color=always --cache)
        if [ -z "$rows" ]; then
            echo "No results"
        fi
        select row in $rows; do
            if [ -n "$row" ]; then
                # Remove color
                row=$(sed -r "s/\x1B\[([0-9]{1,3}(;[0-9]{1,2})?)?[mGK]//g" <<< $row)
                
                file=${row%%:*}
                page=${row#*:}
                page=${page%%:*}
                ( evince "$file" --page-label=$page &>/dev/null & )
            fi
            break
        done
    }
done