Search across PDFs
A name, an amount, a date: found across hundreds of PDFs, with nothing ever uploaded.
Your files never leave your deviceDrop a whole folder of PDFs: VellumPDF reads the text of every page and files it into an index on this device, then you search a name, an amount or a date across every document at once.
Drop your PDFs here
or drag many files at once
Your cabinet
The index stays in this browser, on this device, until you clear it. Nothing is ever sent.
How to search for a word across several PDFs, step by step
A document cabinet is built once: the text of every page is indexed on your device, then searched instantly from then on.
Choose a folder or PDF files
Drag them in, or use “Choose a folder” / “Choose PDF files”. VellumPDF indexes the text of every page.
Follow the indexing
A progress bar names the current file and page; password-protected, unreadable or textless files are counted and listed separately.
Type your search
From two characters onward, results appear automatically, across all documents at once.
Browse the results
Each one shows the file name, page number, number of matches, and an excerpt with the term highlighted.
Click a result to see the page
A preview shows up if the file is still held in the tab’s memory; otherwise a message asks you to drop it in again.
The index — the text, never the files themselves — stays on this device until you clear it. If IndexedDB is blocked (private browsing, for instance), the cabinet still works, but nothing survives after the tab closes.
Frequently asked questions
Are the PDFs themselves sent anywhere to be indexed?
No. Each page is read by your browser (pdf.js), and only the text that comes out of it is saved in IndexedDB, a database built into the browser. The PDF file is never transmitted, nor even copied elsewhere on your device.
Why doesn’t a result’s preview always show up?
Because the index keeps only the text, not the file — that is what keeps it tiny even facing a folder of several hundred PDFs. As long as the file is still open in the current tab, its preview shows; after reloading the page, it needs to be dropped again to see it.
Does the search care about case and accents?
No, on purpose: searching for “geneve” also finds “Genève”, “GENÈVE” or “genève”. Several words in the same search must all appear on the same page, in any order.
Does an amount like 1’200 show up when I just type 1200?
Yes. The search strips the Swiss apostrophe and non-breaking space that separate thousands before comparing, so “1’200”, “1 200” and “1200” all find each other — both in the document text and in what you type.
What happens with a scanned PDF that has no text?
A page with no detected text is counted and reported in the summary after indexing — it doesn’t cause an error, but it stays unfindable by search until it has been run through the text recognition tool, which adds it a text layer.