When dates, years, or months across multiple PDFs need to be updated uniformly, opening and modifying each file individually is very inefficient. This article takes date replacement as an example to explain how to use the "Find and replace keywords in PDF" function in HeSoft Doc Batch Tool , using formulas to fuzzy find and match months and four-digit years, then batch replace them with new date content, suitable for office scenarios such as reports, contracts, announcements, and archived materials.
Many office documents are eventually archived or sent out in PDF format, such as project reports, audit documents, notices, contract attachments, and product manuals. The advantage of PDF is its format stability, but when content needs to be updated uniformly, the cost of modification increases. Date-related content, in particular, may be scattered across multiple PDFs: some files contain April, others May; some have the year 2017, others 2020. If you open each file manually to find and replace, it is not only time-consuming but also prone to omissions due to the large number of pages and files.
This article addresses the specific question of "how to batch replace dates in multiple PDFs" by introducing how to use " HeSoft Doc Batch Tool " for batch processing. This software is a document batch processing tool designed for office scenarios, focusing on solving batch file processing, reducing repetitive work, and improving efficiency. In the example provided in this article, we will batch replace months and years matching the rules in multiple PDFs, for instance, changing "April 13, 2017" on a page to "August 13, 2026".
Applicable Scenario: PDF Dates, Years, and Numbers Requiring Uniform Updates
Using wildcards for fuzzy searching and replacing PDF keywords is best suited for handling text with patterns. Dates are a typical example: the month is an English word, and the year is a four-digit number, with possible dates and commas in between. As long as the pattern is clear, you can have the software match them using formulas, without having to manually list every old date variation.
Besides dates, similar scenarios include: batch replacing report years in PDFs; uniformly modifying the effective date in contracts; updating old months in headers of multiple PDFs to new months; replacing version numbers, batch numbers, and project codes in the document body; and processing archived documents converted from Word, doc, docx, or Excel to PDF. This type of batch modification is very common for roles in administration, human resources, finance, project management, and document archiving.
Pre-processing Status: Multiple PDFs Awaiting Batch Processing
Before processing, there are four files in the folder: 1.pdf, 2.pdf, 3.pdf, and 4.pdf. The quantity may seem small, but in actual work, there could be far more than four. If each PDF has dozens of pages, manually opening and searching them would consume a significant amount of time.
Upon opening one of the PDFs, you can see the date "April 13, 2017" on the page. In the screenshot, the red boxes highlight the month and year respectively, which are the exact targets for this replacement. Since the "13," in the date does not need to be changed, we can establish replacement rules only for the month and year.
Post-processing Result: Months and Years Replaced According to Rules
After completing the batch processing, opening the output PDF reveals that the original location now displays "August 13, 2026". The month was replaced from April to August, the year from 2017 to 2026, while the date numbers and punctuation in the middle remained unchanged.
This result demonstrates that using fuzzy find and replace does not necessarily require replacing the entire date string. For many office documents, replacing only the variable parts is safer, such as replacing only the month, year, or the digital segment in a number, which minimizes the impact on other content.
Step 1: Locate the Keyword Find and Replace Function in the PDF Toolkit
After launching " HeSoft Doc Batch Tool ", first navigate to the "PDF Toolkit" in the left-side menu. The interface will list multiple PDF-related batch processing functions. According to the screenshot, this article requires clicking the first function card, "Find and Replace Keywords in PDF".
The purpose of this step is clear: to enter the batch find and replace process for PDF body content. Note that the software also has categories for file names and folder names. If your goal is to modify the PDF content itself, you should choose the keyword find and replace under the PDF Toolkit, not the file name processing functions.
Step 2: Import All PDFs Requiring Date Modification
After entering the function, the wizard pauses at Step 1, "Select records to process". In the upper right corner of the page, there are two common entry points: "Add Files" and "Import Files from Folder". If your PDFs are scattered in different locations, you can use "Add Files"; if all PDFs are in the same folder, "Import Files from Folder" is more convenient.
The screenshot shows that 4 PDFs have been imported, with the list displaying their names, paths, extensions, creation times, and modification times. Users are advised to focus on two checks: first, whether the extensions are all pdf; second, whether the path is the directory of the files to be processed this time. If incorrect files were imported, you can use the delete button in the operation column to remove them. After confirming the record count and file scope are correct, click "Next" at the bottom.
Step 3: Enable Fuzzy Text Search Using Formulas
Upon entering Step 2, "Set Processing Options", first select the search method. The interface presents two options: "Exact Text Search" and "Fuzzy Text Search Using Formulas". Since dates in this example might not be perfectly consistent, select "Fuzzy Text Search Using Formulas".
The significance of choosing this method is to let the software identify text based on formula rules, rather than searching only for one completely fixed string. For example, searching exactly for "April" would miss May; searching only for "2017" would miss other years. Using formulas allows you to consolidate a class of text into a rule.
Step 4: Fill in Date Replacement Rules
In the "Keyword List to Find" on the left, the example in the screenshot fills in two lines: the first line is "April|May", the second line is "\d{4}". In the "Replacement Keyword List" on the right, the first line is filled with "August", and the second line with "2026".
This set of rules can be understood as follows: the first line on the left matches the months April or May, which are replaced with the content from the first line on the right, August; the second line on the left matches four-digit years, which are replaced with the content from the second line on the right, 2026. This line-by-line correspondence allows for separate processing of months and years.
In practical office work, if you need to replace Chinese dates, you can set corresponding search content based on the actual text patterns; if you need to replace numbers, you can combine fixed prefixes with digit patterns. However, before filling in, always observe the original PDF text to confirm that the matching scope is not too broad, to avoid mistakenly replacing other unrelated four-digit numbers in the body text.
Step 5: Set Save Location and Execute Batch Processing
Once the keyword list setup is complete, click "Next". As seen from the top process flow, the subsequent steps are "Set Save Location" and "Start Processing". It is recommended to save the processed PDFs to a new folder, so you can keep the original PDFs for easy comparison and verification. If the processing results are confirmed to be correct, you can then use the new files for archiving or sending.
When entering the "Start Processing" step, follow the wizard's instructions. The software will perform find and replace on each of the PDFs in the imported list one by one. After processing is complete, open the result files to check key pages and confirm whether the months and years have been updated as expected.
Common Questions and Considerations
1. Why is it recommended to split the date replacement into two lines for month and year? This preserves other parts of the date, such as keeping "13," unchanged. Compared to whole-string replacement, segmented replacement is more suitable for situations where multiple PDFs have similar date structures but different local content.
2. Will "\d{4}" match other four-digit numbers? This is possible. It represents four-digit numbers, so if there are other four-digit identifiers in the PDF, they might also be matched. Therefore, before formal batch processing, it is recommended to test with a small set of files first to confirm there are no accidental replacements.
3. Can scanned PDFs be replaced? If the PDF pages are essentially images and the text cannot be normally selected or copied, conventional text find and replace might not recognize it directly. The example in this article's screenshots involves a PDF where text content can be identified. Before processing, you can first open the PDF to test if text can be selected.
4. What happens if the replacement keyword list is left blank? The interface prompt says "Leaving it blank means deletion." If your goal is to replace the date, not delete it, make sure the corresponding line on the right is filled with new text.
Summary
The key to batch replacing dates in multiple PDFs is transforming "repetitive operations" into "rule-based processing". Through the "Find and Replace Keywords in PDF" function of " HeSoft Doc Batch Tool ", users can import multiple PDFs at once, choose fuzzy text search using formulas, fill in month and year replacement rules, and then uniformly output the processing results.
For office workers who frequently handle PDF reports, contracts, and archived documents, this method significantly reduces the time spent opening and modifying individual files and lowers the risk of missing changes. It is advisable to back up the original files before formal processing and test the rules on a sample basis to ensure accuracy before executing in batch.