Acrobat for AEC Knowledge Management - Adobe Acrobat and PDF for Architecture, Engineering, and Construction - page 218

7. Check Proximity to search for returns in documents where the words are within a defined
number of words. The default for a proximity search is 900 words, but can be altered in
the preferences by choosing Edit > Preferences > Search.
8. Click Search to perform the search. The returns are shown in the Results area of the
Search PDF window, and each instance of the terms is highlighted in the list. Your first
search return is an article on the Explorer VIII satellite's new red paint job; radiation was
changing the original white paint to yellow and raising the internal temperature.
If all the issues of the Marshall Star were searched, you would in later years find that people
were selling Ford Explorers with good paint jobs as returns for the search. The Search function
will search all 2200 indexed editions as fast as it searches these 13 editions.
It took over an hour to make the 101MB catalog of the Marshall Star, but the search
capabilities are extremely powerful and fast. Unlike databases, where we search for exact
phrases, we are whole-text searching for ideas. Engineering drawings with searchable text can
be cataloged and searched in the same manner.
References
[1] See, for example, the Marshall Web site, http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/home/index.html.