We are aware of the issue with the badge emails resending to everyone, we apologise for the inconvenience - learn more here.

Forum Discussion

JONMARWIL's avatar
JONMARWIL
Explorer | Level 3
10 months ago

Large PDF files not being found using search (contents)

Hi, I’m currently evaluating Dropbox as a tool to store PDF files for easy access using content search (keywords etc). At the moment, I’m just using a number of test documents to assess the suitabilit...
File access
View
Web
  • Hannah's avatar
    Hannah
    9 months ago

    Hey JONMARWIL, sorry to jump in here.

     

    Extremely large files (e.g.: a 250 page PDF) will not have all words indexed for search, so likely they won't appear in the search. 

     

    We've shared this feedback with our team, and we'll keep you in the loop with any updates on here. 

     

    Thank you!

Jay's avatar
Jay
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff

Hi JONMARWIL, thanks for messaging the Community!

 

Could you clarify approximately how many words you have in those large PDF files?

 

For the smaller documents you mentioned, how large are they?

 

This will help me to assist further!

JONMARWIL's avatar
JONMARWIL
Explorer | Level 3
9 months ago
Hi Jay

Thanks for replying.

Exact word counts are tricky, however estimates are

Large 806 page doc, around 600K words

Smaller docs (1 to 20 pages), range from around 500 to 15K words

Hope this helps

J
  • Hannah's avatar
    Hannah
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    9 months ago

    Hey JONMARWIL, sorry to jump in here.

     

    Extremely large files (e.g.: a 250 page PDF) will not have all words indexed for search, so likely they won't appear in the search. 

     

    We've shared this feedback with our team, and we'll keep you in the loop with any updates on here. 

     

    Thank you!

    • loganbracken's avatar
      loganbracken
      New member | Level 2
      17 days ago

      Any updates on this feature? I have a large textbook PDF I've shared with my class, and I have students complaining they are unable to find keywords by search.

About View, download, and export

Need support with viewing, downloading, and exporting files and folders from your Dropbox account? Find help from the Dropbox Community.

Need more support

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X or Facebook.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!