Starting in PDF Studio 2019.1.0, the Advance Search feature includes a new option to search within PDF documents using regular expressions.

This option can be enabled under Advance Search -> “use regular expression” checkbox.

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Below is some examples on how to use this option.

Example 1: Search Social security numbers

  1. Open Advance Search dialog (Ctrl + Shift + F)
  2. Check “Use Regular Expression” option
  3. Enter search keywords: \d{3}-\d{2}-\d{4}
  4. Select Search dropdown and select the search location. In this example, I selected Directory search

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Example 2: Search US Phone numbers

  1. Open Advance Search dialog (Ctrl + Shift + F)
  2. Check “Use Regular Expression” option
  3. Enter search keywords: ((\(\d{3}\)?)|(\d{3}-))?\d{3}-\d{4}
  4. Select Search dropdown and select the search location. In this example, I selected Directory search.

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Example 3: Search email addresses

  1. Open Advance Search dialog (Ctrl + Shift + F)
  2. Check “Use Regular Expression” option
  3. Enter search keywords: [\w-]+@([\w-]+\.)+[\w-]+
  4. Select Search dropdown and select the search location. In this example, I selected Directory search.

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For more examples about regular expressions, you can refer to the following website:

https://www.regular-expressions.info/examples.html