Searchable PDF in OJS

Software Support
1

I wonder how can journals make their PDF files searchable?

In case of some journals the content of PDFs on pour OJS platform is searchable by search engines, while with others it is not.

Please give me any clues what can be done to change the situation.

All best :slight_smile:

1 Like
2

Hi @apla,

Have you enabled pdftotext in your config.inc.php file?

-Roger
PKP Team

4

Very interesting question, Apla, when you design the PDF file then enter the document information into the file, whether you are using LaTex, MS-Word , Scribus, InDesign or any other way. This is also a best way to give the digital identity to the article, very few journals use it. Open your PDF file, check the document properties and look for the title, author names, subject, keywords, journal and publisher name, if all are there, means your PDF article is optimized for the search engines. Look this screenshot…

PKP-PDF
PKP-PDF889×647 83.6 KB

5

@rcgillis gave you the right pointer.

Also, you have to reindex metadata and the files

php {ojsrootdirectory}/tools/rebuildSearchIndex.php

If you have a large journal platform with several 100 articles (and especially non-English-language articles), it’s worth considering installing the Lucene plugin and Solr search engine, which give you much better search results and functions. Installation, however, is not straight-forward.