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To search for a word in a PDF in Chrome on a computer, open the PDF, press Ctrl+F on Windows, Linux, or ChromeOS (Command+F on a Mac), and type the word or phrase. On Android, open the PDF, tap More, choose Find in page, and type. The steps below cover both, plus what to do when a scanned PDF does not return the results you expect.
Search a PDF in Chrome on a computer
Chrome includes a built-in PDF viewer that supports search, so you do not need an extension or a separate PDF app for basic text searches.
- Open the PDF in Chrome. If the file opens in another app, download it or open the PDF link in Chrome. The search steps below apply only when the document is displayed in Chrome’s PDF viewer.
- Press the find shortcut. Use Ctrl+F on Windows, Linux, or ChromeOS. On a Mac, use Command+F.
- Type the word or phrase. Chrome shows the matches and lets you move between them.
- Move through the results. Use the arrows in the find bar to go to the next or previous match. Google’s computer help says matches are highlighted in yellow and their positions are marked on the scrollbar, so you can see where hits fall across a long document.
- Use the menu if the shortcut does not work. Click the More (three-dot) menu at the top right of the Chrome window and choose Find and edit, then Find. Google’s computer help documents this path as More > Find and edit > Find.
Search a PDF in Chrome on Android
Android uses a menu-based route instead of a keyboard shortcut. Google’s Android help says the Chrome PDF features require Android 12 or later, so check your version first under Settings > About phone if the menu option is missing.
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- Open the PDF in Chrome. You can open a PDF directly from a website in Chrome without downloading it first.
- Tap More. It is in the upper-right corner of the screen.
- Select Find in page and enter the word or phrase.
- Tap the up or down arrow to move to the previous or next instance.
Desktop and Android compared
| Step | Computer (Windows, Linux, ChromeOS) | Computer (Mac) | Android |
|---|---|---|---|
| Start a search | Ctrl+F | Command+F | More > Find in page |
| Fallback route | More > Find and edit > Find | More > Find and edit > Find | Not applicable |
| Move between matches | Find bar arrows | Find bar arrows | Up and down arrows |
| Minimum platform requirement stated by Google | Not stated in the computer help reviewed | Not stated in the computer help reviewed | Android 12 or later |
Searching a scanned PDF
A scanned PDF is an image of a page, so there is no typed text to match until it is converted. Google says that when you open scanned PDFs of physical documents in Chrome’s PDF viewer, they are automatically converted with optical character recognition (OCR) so they become searchable and selectable. Google also says this conversion runs on the device and does not send the document to Google or third parties. This is stated in Google’s computer PDF help, observed on 2026-10-07.
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In practice, open the scan in Chrome, give the page a moment to process, and then run the search again. OCR is not perfect. Faint, skewed, or low-resolution scans may return fewer matches or misread characters, and Google does not promise that every word will be recognised. If a specific word still cannot be found, check the scan for legibility, or use a different PDF reader or OCR tool as a fallback.
Troubleshooting checklist
- The shortcut does nothing: make sure the PDF is open in Chrome, not in a separate PDF app, then use More > Find and edit > Find on the computer.
- No Find in page option on Android: confirm you are running Android 12 or later and that the file is open in Chrome.
- A word you can see on the page is not found in a scanned PDF: wait for OCR to finish, try a shorter or differently spelled search term, and check how legible the scan is.
- Results appear for words you did not type: the search matches the text as Chrome has read it, so a scan with OCR errors can produce unexpected hits.
The sources reviewed are Google’s official Chrome Help pages: “Manage PDFs in Chrome – Computer,” “Search the web in Chrome – Computer,” and “Manage PDFs in Chrome – Android,” observed on 2026-10-07.
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