How to Search for PDFs on Google? (Step by Step Guide)

There are multiple scenarios when you need to look for a PDF search result on Google. You could be looking for online forms or documents, or you are trying to get some technical papers like an instruction manual. For all these and many other use cases, it is essential to know how to search for PDF on Google. While it may seem very hard, this step-by-step guide will make the process extremely easy for you.

Part 1. How to Google Search for PDFs? (Step by Step Guide)

Searching specifically for PDF documents in a Google search is extremely easy, and it takes only a few additional measures for you to get the desired results. Here, we have broken down the whole process into 3 simpler steps so that you will find it very efficient to search for your desired PDF document online. So, when you need to search for PDFs on Google, you can follow the steps below:

1. Do a basic Google search to see the results.

You will always need to start with a basic Google Search. It is because sometimes the thing that we are searching for is already well-optimized according to the keywords that we are searching for. So, there are chances that you will find that PDF result with a basic Google Search.

Type in what you want to search for and hit "Enter" to see multiple search results. You can open one that seems relevant to check if it has the PDF you need or not.

2. Add this command "Filetype: PDF" to your search.

Say that you were unable to find the PDF document in the first step. Now, we will narrow down our search results by using this Google search command "filetype:pdf". Using this command will narrow down the search results to only show links that contain a PDF document.

Say that you are searching for PDFs about climate change, you can add the command before or after your main keywords as in this example "filetype:pdf climate change or climate change filetype:pdf" and it will provide the same results either way.

3. Open a search result to verify that it is a PDF document

When you finally believe you have reached a search result you are looking for, it is also important to check out the search result to confirm that indeed you have obtained the actual result as there may be PDF content types beneath that link. Therefore clicking on the link will begin loading an attached PDF in another tab.

As soon as the PDF opens, you should look through the content to determine whether it meets your needs and whether it can be judged with just a look at the PDF's first page. If everything seems fine, then that's the search result that you were looking for and the command "filetype:pdf" has helped find it efficiently.

Part 2. How to Annotate and Edit PDFs after Finding it from Google Search?

In most use cases, when you find the right PDF from Google Search, the very next thing that you need to do is edit that PDF. However, not knowing which PDF editor to use decreases the efficiency for many at a significant level. So, if you also want to know how to edit PDFs after you find them from Google Search, you need to use UPDF.

UPDF is a complete package of PDF editing tools that you can use for editing, annotating, filling, and even editing scanned PDF documents. Moreover, it brings the UPDF AI feature that can help you review, summarize, translate, and generate content for PDF documents right within the tool, making things extremely efficient. So, for everyone who needs to use a PDF editor after finding PDF from Google search, UPDF is the right tool to download.

1. Open UPDF PDF Editor on your PC and open the PDF file in it

You will need to download the PDF from Google search first by clicking the tiny download icon button present in the top bar menu. After the PDF has completed downloading, you may open UPDF on your PC by double-clicking its desktop icon.

When UPDF opens you can click "Open File" button and locate the freshly downloaded PDF from Google search results on the file explorer of your PC. Click to select this PDF and click "Open" button to open the PDF in UPDF.

2. Go to Comment and Click the Highlight tool to use it

In this example, we will be adding a note in the PDF document specifically for some highlighted parts of the text. So, for this use case, we will first go to "Comment" from the left menu and then click the "Highlight" tool. Clicking it will show a popup where we can select the color in which the text will be highlighted.

Thus, you can choose a particular color for your text highlighting prior to it. Also, note that it is possible to change your highlight tool properties after you already highlighted some texts.

3. Highlighting content and adding notes with Highlight Tool.

Now, you need to move the cursor to the part of the PDF that you need to highlight. Hold the click and drag the cursor over the text to intelligently highlight it with UPDF. Once you are done highlighting, right-click on the section and select "Note". Now, you will get to type the note for that specific text that can be revealed every time the highlighted area in PDF is clicked. You get to customize this note bubble as well in terms of its color and other properties.

4. Save the edited PDF as Flatten to make all those changes to the PDF permanent.

Some users prefer keeping their PDF documents editable so they can revise the edits they made, and others can revise their edits as well. However, sometimes you need to restrict others from making any changes to your edits in the PDF and that can be done by saving your PDF as flatten.

So, once you are done with making all the edits to the PDF, you can click on "Save as Other" from right menu and pick "Save as Flatten". A pop-up window will appear where you can select from different types of flattening options, then click "Save as" and follow through the saving steps to save your PDF document on your device.

Key Features

While the step-by-step guide included the process about highlighting and adding notes to them in a PDF, there is a lot that you can do with UPDF with the following features:

• The OCR feature lets you make up to 38 languages in scanned or image format to editable PDF format.
• You can use UPDF AI to translate that foreign language document with ease without using any third-party tool.
• It offers UPDF Cloud that sync your documents on all devices on your account. So you never have to move documents manually.
• You can edit PDF images, text, and links with complete attention to detail.
• UPDF lets you work on and edit PDF forms with interactive elements.
• It supports the PDF Redact feature.
• You can convert your files to and from the PDF format with UPDF
• UPDF lets you organize pages in a PDF document

With all these features, UPDF offers a lot of others and ensures that every user gets the best experience with its less hardware resource requirements, great UI design, and exceptional performance on every device. Therefore, UPDF is the only PDF editor that you need to download on your PC and smartphone. In fact, you can unlock its premium features when you purchase UPDF Pro. And it is not wise to only listen what we say, you can get a better idea about UPDF after checking this review from the big media.

Final Thoughts

No matter due to which reason you must search for PDFs on Google, you must know the efficient method to search for results that show the top related PDF documents. It means that you don't have to open and check if each of the links has a PDF document linked to it or not. So, knowing how to search for PDF on Google will save you a lot of time.

However, once you find the PDF, you may need to edit it and for that we recommend using UPDF. UPDF is among the best PDF editors that you can try, and it works on all your devices with its amazing features. UPDF will be the best PDF editor website that you will need to try on your devices after you download it.