Introduction

Ever find yourself drowning in a sea of documents—be it PDFs, Word files, or other formats—and wish you could effortlessly find specific words or phrases? You’re not alone! Searching text inside complex files can be a challenge, especially when you also want visual cues like highlights to quickly locate your search terms. That’s where GroupDocs.Parser for Java shines.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through how to use GroupDocs.Parser to search text within documents and generate highlighted results easily. Whether you’re a developer enhancing your app or just love automation, this tutorial will give you a clear, step-by-step approach to master this powerful feature.

Ready to dive into the world of search and highlights? Let’s get started!

Prerequisites

Before we roll up our sleeves, make sure you have these essentials ready to go:

  • Java Development Environment: JDK 8+ installed.
  • Maven or Gradle: For dependency management and project setup.
  • GroupDocs.Parser for Java library: Download or add via dependency.
  • A sample document: Test PDFs or texts to search within.
  • Basic Java knowledge: Familiarity with classes, methods, and file handling.

If you don’t have the library yet, you can grab the latest from GroupDocs Downloads or add it via Maven:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.groupdocs</groupId>
  <artifactId>groupdocs-parser</artifactId>
  <version>21.12</version>
</dependency>

Import Packages

To kick off, let’s import the essential classes from GroupDocs.Parser:

import com.groupdocs.parser.Parser;
import com.groupdocs.parser.search.HighlightOptions;
import com.groupdocs.parser.search.SearchOptions;
import com.groupdocs.parser.search.SearchResult;

These imports cover core functionalities for parsing documents, setting highlight options, and performing search operations.

Step-by-Step Guide to Search Text with Highlights

Let’s walk through the process subdivided into manageable, clear steps. Each step has its own explanation to help you understand the why and how.

Step 1: Initialize the Parser with Your Document

What’s happening here?

Creating an instance of the Parser class tied to your document file allows you to access and analyze its content.

try (Parser parser = new Parser("path/to/your/document.pdf")) {
    // your code here
}

In actuality:
The try-with-resources statement ensures that your file is closed properly after processing, preventing resource leaks. Replace "path/to/your/document.pdf" with your precise file path or URL.

Step 2: Set Up Highlight Options

Why define highlight options?

You may want to control the appearance or behavior of how search hits are highlighted—such as the number of characters to show around the match or the color (if supported).

In this example, we set a highlight radius of 15 characters:

HighlightOptions highlightOptions = new HighlightOptions(15);

This wraps the found text with surrounding context—like a magnifying glass around your keywords—making it easier to spot where the matches occur.

Step 3: Perform the Search in the Document

How does the search work?

Using parser.search, you specify the keyword or phrase, the search options, and then get an iterable collection of SearchResult objects.

Iterable<SearchResult> results = parser.search("lorem", new SearchOptions(true, false, false, highlightOptions));

Breaking down the SearchOptions constructor:

  • true: Enable case-insensitive search.
  • false: Do not match whole words only.
  • false: Do not search for regex patterns.
  • highlightOptions: Pass our highlighting configuration.

This setup searches for all “lorem” occurrences, ignoring case, and with highlighted snippets.

Step 4: Handle Search Support and Results

Check if search is supported

Some formats might not support search — always confirm:

if (results == null) {
    System.out.println("Search isn't supported in this document format.");
    return;
}

Process each search hit

Loop through results to extract and display matching snippets with highlights:

for (SearchResult result : results) {
    String snippet = String.format("%s%s%s", 
        result.getLeftHighlightItem().getText(), 
        result.getText(), 
        result.getRightHighlightItem().getText());
    System.out.println(snippet);
}

This combines left context, the matched text, and right context, so your output shows exactly where and what was found, all nicely highlighted.

Wrapping Up

By following these steps, you’ve harnessed the power of GroupDocs.Parser in Java to perform keyword searches with visual highlights inside your documents. It’s like having a virtual highlighter pen that not only finds your words but also draws attention to them magically!

Conclusion

Searching for specific text within various document formats can be a tedious task—unless you have the right tools. With GroupDocs.Parser, not only can you locate your keywords efficiently, but you can also present the results in a visually appealing, easily navigable way. Whether you’re building a document analysis system or automating content review, this feature is a game-changer.

Remember, the key is setting up your parser properly, customizing your search options, and processing the results thoughtfully.

FAQs

  1. Can I search multiple keywords at once?
    Not directly; you’d need to iterate over each keyword separately or implement a regex pattern for multiple words.

  2. Does the highlight radius affect all document formats?
    It depends on the format support, but for most supported types, yes.

  3. Can I change highlight colors?
    The basic HighlightOptions supports context radius, but visual highlight colors may depend on the viewer, not the parser.

  4. Is search case-sensitive by default?
    No, by setting caseSensitive to false in SearchOptions, search becomes case-insensitive.

  5. Does this work with scanned images or only text-based files?
    Search works with text-based document formats. For scanned images, you’d need OCR functionalities.

Resources