What is the keyboard shortcut to search a PDF?

Last reviewed: October 21, 2026 · Markdown version

Ctrl+F on Windows and Command-F on a Mac. Every desktop PDF viewer whose help we read today opens its find bar with that pair: Adobe Acrobat and Acrobat Reader, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Apple's Preview through the standard Mac shortcut. The key most people never learn is the next one: Ctrl+G (Command-G on a Mac) jumps to the next match without reaching for the mouse. The table is the quick version; each section below names the vendor page it comes from.

Viewer	Open find	Next match	Previous match
Acrobat or Acrobat Reader, Windows	Ctrl+F	F3 or Ctrl+G	Not in Adobe's table
Acrobat or Acrobat Reader, Mac	Command-F	Command-G	Not in Adobe's table
Chrome, Windows	Ctrl+F or F3	Ctrl+G	Ctrl+Shift+G
Chrome, Mac	Command-F	Command-G	Command-Shift-G
Edge, Windows	Ctrl+F	Ctrl+G	Ctrl+Shift+G
Edge, Mac	Command-F	Command-G	Command-Shift-G
Preview, Mac	Command-F	Command-G	Shift-Command-G

Adobe Acrobat and Acrobat Reader

Adobe's shortcut reference lists "Find in document" as Ctrl + F on Windows and command + F on a Mac, and "Move to the next search result and highlight it in the document" as "F3 or Ctrl + G" (command + G on a Mac). The same table has no row for the previous result, so for going backwards use the arrow buttons in the find bar (Keyboard shortcuts, Acrobat Desktop Help, read 21 October 2026).

For a search across a whole folder, Adobe's Reader page gives one shortcut and one menu path: "In a web browser, press Ctrl+Shift+F to open the advanced Search pane", while "In the Acrobat Reader application, choose Edit > Advanced Search" (Save, view, and search PDFs, Adobe Acrobat Reader Help, read 21 October 2026). Once the results list covers several files, the shortcut table adds a pair for stepping between documents: "Search the next document (with Search results displaying multiple files)" is Alt + Shift + Right Arrow, marked "(Windows only)", or command + shift + Right Arrow on a Mac, with Left Arrow for the previous document (the Keyboard shortcuts page above). How that folder search works, and its limits, is on searching in Adobe Reader.

Chrome and Edge, for a PDF opened in the browser

Google's shortcut list describes Ctrl + f or F3 as "Open the Find Bar to search the current page", then Ctrl + g to "Jump to the next match to your Find Bar search" and Ctrl + Shift + g for the previous one; the Mac column uses ⌘ in place of Ctrl, and adds ⌘ + e to search for the text you have selected while the find bar is open (Chrome keyboard shortcuts, Google Chrome Help, read 21 October 2026).

Microsoft's list for Edge matches it closely: Ctrl+F is "Open find on page", Ctrl+G is "Jump to the next result for find on page" and Ctrl+Shift+G goes back, with F3 listed as "Find in the current tab". On a Mac the same three are Command+F, Command+G and Command+Shift+G. Edge's table also has PDF-only keys, such as Ctrl+\ to "Toggle PDF between fit to page / fit to width" (Keyboard shortcuts in Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Support, read 21 October 2026). Neither list is written for PDFs alone; both describe the current page or tab, which is where a PDF you opened in the browser sits. The browser-by-browser detail, Safari included, is on searching a PDF in a browser.

Preview on a Mac

A small surprise: Apple's own shortcut page for Preview covers saving, tabs, zoom and page movement, and has no entry for finding text (Keyboard shortcuts in Preview on Mac, Preview User Guide, read 21 October 2026). The shortcut comes from Apple's list for the whole Mac instead: "Command-F: Find items in a document or open a Find window", and "Command-G: Find Again: Find the next occurrence of the item previously found. To find the previous occurrence, press Shift-Command-G" (Mac keyboard shortcuts, Apple Support, read 21 October 2026).

Preview's search has two options worth a click once the results appear. If you type a phrase, "Preview searches for that exact phrase", and choosing Any Match widens it to any of the words; the results can be sorted by Search Rank, the number of matches, or by Page Order (Find text in PDFs in Preview on Mac, Preview User Guide, read 21 October 2026).

On a phone

There is no Ctrl key, so the same command lives in a menu, and it has a different name in each app. Ctrl+F on a phone lists where it is in Safari, Chrome, Apple's Preview, Files by Google and Google Docs.

If the shortcut opens but finds nothing

A find bar can only match words that are stored in the file. When you can see a word on the page and the search still says no results, the page is probably a scan with no text behind the picture; checking for a text layer takes a few seconds. And every key in the table above searches the one PDF you have open. When the word could be in any of dozens of files, that is a different job, covered on searching inside many PDFs at once.