WebEquipe PDF Search

Description

WebEquipe PDF Search indexes your PDF files and makes their text searchable. When visitors search your site, they see results from both your posts/pages and the content inside your PDFs. Search returns one result per PDF with an excerpt from the best-matching page.

Video

Watch the setup and usage guide:

Supported PDFs

• Works with: Standard, text-based PDFs (the kind you create or export from Word, Google Docs, etc.). File size default 50MB, configurable up to 500MB in PDF Search → Settings.
• Mixed PDFs: If some pages have extractable text and others are image-only, indexing succeeds with a warning; search covers the text pages only.
• Does not work with: Scanned or image-only PDFs with no extractable text—they are marked Error with guidance to use a text-based PDF (run OCR elsewhere first). Password-protected PDFs cannot be indexed.

Keep Private PDFs Out of Search

Need to hide or protect certain PDFs? Use Exclude so a PDF is never indexed and never appears in search—even when you run «Re-index All PDFs» or bulk index. Excluded PDFs stay in your Media Library; they just won’t be searchable. Use Include later to allow indexing again. You can exclude or include PDFs from the Media Library or from PDF Search → Manage PDFs.

How to Use

1. Install and activate the plugin.
2. Open PDF Search in the WordPress admin sidebar (Dashboard is the home screen).
3. Click Re-index All PDFs on the Dashboard or PDF Search → Index Activity to index existing PDFs (new uploads are indexed automatically when Enable PDF Indexing is on).
4. Use your site’s search or add the shortcode [webequipe_pdf_search_form] on a page—PDFs will appear in results when Enable Search Integration is enabled.

Use PDF Search → Manage PDFs to scan the library, filter by status, and run bulk actions. Use PDF Search → Index Activity to review indexing runs, export a CSV log, or start another full re-index.

Settings at a Glance

All options are under PDF Search → Settings:

• General – Enable PDF indexing on upload, include PDFs in WordPress search, maximum file size (50MB default), search result excerpt length.
• Indexing options – Batch size (PDFs per re-index step), pages per batch (background page steps), page index threshold (when large PDFs switch to page-by-page indexing), max page content length (0 = unlimited; re-index after changing).
• Search display options – Show or hide PDF icon, file size, page count, last updated date, author, thumbnail preview, and summary/snippet text in search results.
• Advanced – Debug logging, memory limit, processing timeout, background processing, delete data on uninstall.

Full details and shortcode options: PDF Search → Help.

What You Can Do

• Dashboard – Indexed PDF count, pages indexed, coverage, search health, recent activity, quick links, and Re-index All PDFs (status banner uses live index data).
• Manage PDFs – Scan the library, filter by status (including Processing / Scheduled), cancel in-flight jobs, bulk actions, and accurate Re-index All progress with a do-not-refresh notice.
• Full-text search – Search inside PDF content by page; one result per PDF with the best-matching excerpt.
• Control each PDF – Index, unindex, exclude, or retry from the Media Library, Manage PDFs, or the attachment screen.
• Bulk actions – Index, unindex, include, or exclude multiple PDFs at once (Media Library or Manage PDFs).
• Index Activity – Filterable log of every indexing run, stats, and CSV export.
• Search display – Configure icons, meta, previews, and excerpts in settings.
• Shortcode – Add a PDF-only search form with [webequipe_pdf_search_form] (see PDF Search → Help).
• Background processing – Large PDFs above the page threshold are indexed page-by-page in the background to avoid timeouts.

Pro Version — OCR, Private Search & Analytics

The free plugin indexes standard text-based PDFs. WebEquipe PDF Search Pro is optional (sold separately) and extends the free plugin with three features document-heavy sites often need:

OCR for Scanned PDFs (Starter, Pro & Agency)
Scanned PDFs, archived documents, and image-based files are invisible to the free plugin. Pro uses Google Vision OCR to read and index them automatically on upload—no pre-processing, no extra tools. Government records, old meeting minutes, scanned handbooks: all searchable.

Private PDF Search (Pro & Agency)
Mark any PDF as Private. It remains fully indexed but disappears from search results for logged-out visitors. Perfect for member-only handbooks, restricted resources, and confidential documents—without removing them from your Media Library.

Analytics Dashboard (Pro & Agency)
See exactly what visitors search for and—more importantly—what they search for and don’t find. Zero-result queries are your content gap list. Top queries, most-clicked PDFs, and click-through rates, all in one admin screen.

Plans at a glance:

• Free – Full-text search, auto indexing, shortcode, bulk actions, multisite. Forever free.
• Starter – Everything in Free + OCR (1,000 pages/month), advanced filters. From $89/yr.
• Pro – Everything in Starter + Private PDF search, Analytics dashboard, 3,000 OCR pages/month, 5 sites. From $169/yr.
• Agency – Everything in Pro + white-label mode, 10,000 OCR pages/month, unlimited sites. From $529/yr.

See full pricing and feature comparison →

Troubleshooting

PDFs not appearing in search

Ensure PDFs are indexed (Media Library → «Search Indexed» column), Enable Search Integration is on, and the PDF is not excluded. Check PDF Search → Manage PDFs for Error status and use Index Activity to see why a run failed.

Indexing fails or times out

In PDF Search → Settings: enable Background Processing, review Pages Per Batch and Page Index Threshold for large files, and lower Batch Size if Re-index All PDFs stops early. Under Advanced, adjust Processing Timeout and ensure PHP memory_limit and max_execution_time are sufficient (see Help). Very large PDFs are processed in multiple page batches automatically when over the threshold.

Scanned PDFs marked as Error

The free plugin cannot extract text from image-based or scanned PDFs—this is expected. To index scanned PDFs, use WebEquipe PDF Search Pro (Starter plan and above) which includes built-in Google Vision OCR. See Pro plans →

Legacy index after upgrade

If you see a notice about migrating to per-page indexing, run Re-index All PDFs from the Dashboard or Index Activity page.

Other issues

See the FAQ above and PDF Search → Help for full documentation.

Privacy

The plugin stores extracted PDF text and metadata in custom database tables (webequipe_pdf_search_files, webequipe_pdf_search_pages, and webequipe_pdf_search_activity, with a legacy webequipe_pdf_search_index table until you re-index). A compressed backup may also be stored in WordPress post meta for PDF attachments. If debug logging is enabled, recent log entries are stored in a WordPress option (not written directly to disk). The plugin does not collect or send visitor search data to external services. If your PDFs contain personal or sensitive information, that content is in the index—mention this in your privacy policy if required.

Third-Party Libraries

• smalot/pdfparser (LGPL-3.0) – PDF text extraction
• symfony/polyfill-mbstring (MIT) – multibyte string support

Credits

Developed by WebEquipe. Uses smalot/pdfparser for PDF text extraction.

Support

• Support: https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/webequipe-pdf-search
• Pro plans and pricing: https://webequipe.com/pdf-search/