Find any part, not only whole words, with Adobe Acrobat


If you use Adobe Acrobat you may have noticed that starting a search opens a small window at the corner that will let you type a word, without offering even basic options, such as searching for whole words or any part of a word.

This is a design problem with Acrobat, since such options are hidden behind a little arrow at the right side of the search box, which can be easily confused with a way to see previous searches you’ve made. Even if you press this arrow trying desperately to find a way to search for “any part” of a word, you will be surprised to see that the relevant option “Whole Words Only” is checked by default, and can not be unchecked!

To escape this trap, select the first option, Open Full Acrobat Search (even using the hotkey Shift+Ctrl+F).

At the Full Search pane you will be able at last to uncheck the “Whole Words Only” option and start searching for any part of a word.