Enable PDF Indexing With SharePoint 2007

By default PDF indexing is not enabled with SharePoint 2007. This is important to remember when adding PDF documents to document libraries you will be surprised that no PDF documents will show up in the search results.

To enable PDF indexing you need to configure the following steps:

Download Adobe Reader 9.0, which includes IFilter 9.0.0.0, from

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat

Download the Acrobat PDF Picture, to display in front of PDF search result items, from

http://www.adobe.com/misc/linking.html

Add the PDF file type to the Extensions List for WSS search by editing the registry

• Start regedit
• Open the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftShared ToolsWeb Server Extensions12.0SearchApplications{Random GUID}GatherSearchExtensionsExtensionList
• Add PDF to the list as a new String Value. Use a new high value e.g. if 37 is the highest value, use "38" as the key with the value "pdf"

Add the Acrobat PDF picture to the SharePoint templates directory. Copy the Acrobat PDF picture called pdficon_small.gif in the 12 HiveTEMPLATEIMAGES folder, e.g. %programfiles%Common FilesMicrosoft SharedWeb Server Extensions12TEMPLATEIMAGES.

Bind the Acrobat PDF picture to the PDF file type

• Open the 12 HiveTEMPLATEXMLDOCICON.XML file
• Find the part
• Add the following mapping:
  <mapping Key="pdf" Value="pdficon_small.gif" OpenControl="" />

Change IFilter mapping in registry

• Start regedit
• Open the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftShared ToolsWeb Server Extensions12.0SearchSetupContentIndexCommonFiltersExtension
• Add (or modify) the .pdf key
• Add a Multi-String value with value {E8978DA6-047F-4E3D-9C78-CDBE46041603} or modify if another GUID value already exists.
• Open the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftOffice Server12.0SearchSetupContentIndexCommonFiltersExtension
• Add (or modify) the .pdf key
• Add a Multi-String value with value {E8978DA6-047F-4E3D-9C78-CDBE46041603} or modify if another GUID value already exists.

Add the Adobe Reader folder to the environment path variable

• Right Click on My Computer
• Open Properties
• Open the Advanced tab
• Go to the Environment variables
• Edit the Path variable
• Add your Reader folder to the Path list, e.g. C:Program FilesAdobeReader 9.0Reader

Restart the Search service by restarting your server or executing the following commands:

• Run: net stop osearch
• Run: net start osearch

Crawl the PDF documents

Existing PDF documents that were crawled before the Adobe PDF IFilter has been installed are not indexed during an incremental crawl. You have to edit each existing PDF file to trigger the crawler to reindex the file during an incremental crawl. It´s easier to run a full crawl after you have installed the Adobe PDF IFilter.

Following these steps will bring PDF documents to your search results.

Add a comment if you have a question.

Peter