When keywords in multiple PDF files have similar formats but different content, such as different months, years, or numbers, using ordinary exact search often requires repetitive operations. This article explains how to use formula-based fuzzy text search in HeSoft Doc Batch Tool to perform wildcard batch find and replace across multiple PDFs, using date content as an example to illustrate the complete workflow of file import, rule setup, save processing, and result checking.
Many office workers encounter similar PDF modification needs: leadership requires updating the publication dates across a batch of reports, clients ask to change old years to new years in multiple PDF contracts, and project teams need to replace old batch names with new ones in documents. For a single PDF, you can open it for editing or use find and replace, but when dealing with a dozen, dozens, or even more PDF files, processing them individually is not only time-consuming but also prone to issues like missing a file or overlooking certain keywords.
What's more troublesome is that the old content in PDFs is sometimes not exactly the same. For example, some files might say April, while others say May; the year could be 2017, 2018, or 2020. In such cases, using only regular exact search would require writing multiple rules or processing in batches. This article introduces a more suitable method for bulk office tasks: using wildcards or formula-based fuzzy search to find and replace keywords in multiple PDF files in bulk.
The following uses HeSoft Doc Batch Tool as an example for explanation. It is a batch document processing software designed for office scenarios, with categories in its interface for PDF tools, Word tools, Excel tools, PowerPoint tools, etc., suitable for reducing repetitive work when handling a large number of files. This article focuses on demonstrating the batch fuzzy find and replace of keywords in PDFs.
Applicable Scenarios: Fuzzy Search is More Suitable When Keywords Are Variable but Follow Patterns
Ordinary find and replace is suitable for situations where the "original text is exactly the same," for instance, replacing an "old company name" with a "new company name" in all PDFs. However, in actual documents, much content varies in patterns, such as dates, numbers, amount codes, project batch numbers, and version numbers. If their formats follow a pattern, you can consider using wildcards or formula-based fuzzy search.
This example deals with the date on a PDF cover. Before processing, the PDF shows "April 13, 2017." In actual batch tasks, other PDFs might have similar month or year variations. The goal is to uniformly replace the month with August and the four-digit year with 2026, while keeping the middle day number, 13. That is, we are not replacing the entire date string, but only the parts that match the rule.
This type of operation is suitable for: batch modifying dates on PDF report covers; batch updating years in PDF notices; batch replacing project cycles in PDF contracts; batch standardizing version numbers in PDF documents; batch deleting or replacing identifiers with a fixed format. As long as the PDF content is selectable text and the content to be processed follows clear rules, this method can be used to improve efficiency.
Effect Preview: Multiple PDFs Require Uniform Modification Before Processing
From the screenshot of the files before processing, you can see there are multiple PDF files in the folder, including 1.pdf, 2.pdf, 3.pdf, and 4.pdf. These PDFs all belong to the same batch of files awaiting processing, making them suitable for using a batch tool to perform find and replace uniformly.
After opening one of the PDFs, the page displays the report title and date information. The content highlighted by the red box is "April" and "2017," which are the keywords to be processed this time. Since the "13" in the middle of the date does not need modification, the replacement rules need to be as precise as possible, targeting only the month and year.
If done manually, a user would need to open 1.pdf, find April and 2017, modify them, and save; then open 2.pdf and repeat the same actions. The larger the number of files, the more obvious the repetitive labor becomes. The logic of a batch processing tool, however, is to add all files to the task list first, configure the find and replace rules uniformly, and then produce the results in one go.
Post-Processing Effect: The Month and Year in the Date Have Been Updated According to Rules
After the batch replacement is complete, open the processed PDF, and you can see the date has become "August 13, 2026." This indicates that the original month, April, has been replaced with August, the original four-digit year, 2017, with 2026, while the day number 13 remains unchanged.
This effect shows that using wildcards or formula-based fuzzy search does not simply replace the entire text string roughly but can process local text that matches a pattern. For structured content like dates, identifiers, and version numbers, this method is more flexible than finding each one precisely.
Step 1: Open the Keyword Find and Replace Function in PDF Tools
After launching HeSoft Doc Batch Tool , first select "PDF Tools" in the left category bar. The interface displays multiple PDF-related functions, such as Add Watermark to PDF, Convert PDF to Word, Convert PDF to JPG Image, etc. What needs to be processed here is the text within the PDF content, so choose "Find and Replace Keywords in PDF."
In the screenshot, this function is the first item in the PDF tools list, indicating it is specifically the entry point for batch find and replace of PDF text content. Clicking it enters the task page. For users who frequently need to process PDF files, categorizing functions by file type can reduce the time spent searching for tools and prevent misuse of other processing functions.
Step 2: Import the PDF Files for Batch Processing
After entering the function page, the first step is "Select records to process." You need to add all the pending PDFs to the list here. The top right corner of the interface provides two common entries: "Add Files" and "Import Files from Folder." If the PDFs are scattered in different locations, use "Add Files"; if they are already centralized in one folder, using "Import Files from Folder" is more efficient.
The screenshot shows 4 imported records, with file names 1.pdf, 2.pdf, 3.pdf, 4.pdf, all located under D:\test. The table also lists information like extension, creation time, and modification time, allowing users to check if the files are correct. The bottom shows a record count of 4, indicating that subsequent processing will apply to these 4 PDFs.
At this step, it is advisable not to rush to the next step, but to check the file list first. Batch processing is very efficient, but it also means that if an incorrect file is imported, it will also be processed. Therefore, confirming the file scope before formal execution is an important step to ensure accurate results. After confirming everything is correct, click "Next."
Step 3: Choose to Use Formula-Based Fuzzy Text Search
After entering "Set Processing Options," you can see the "Search Method" area. There are two options here: one is "Exact Text Search," and the other is "Use Formula-Based Fuzzy Text Search." If the content to find is completely fixed, for example, only looking for April, you could choose exact search; but this case requires matching multiple possible months and four-digit years, so "Use Formula-Based Fuzzy Text Search" should be selected.
After selecting fuzzy search, input the rules in the left "Keyword List to Find" and the replacement text in the right "Replaced Keyword List." The settings in the screenshot are typical and suitable for understanding the logic of wildcard batch replacement.
The first row on the left is "April|May," and the first row on the right is "August." This means when April or May appears in the PDF, both are replaced with August. The vertical bar here is used to express an "or" relationship, suitable for unifying multiple candidate words into one target word.
The second row on the left is "\d{4}," and the second row on the right is "2026." This means to find four-digit numbers and replace them with 2026. For years, a four-digit number is a very common format, so it can be used to match year content like 2017.
It's important to note that the broader the rule, the more content it might match. For example, "\d{4}" could match all four-digit numbers. If the PDF also contains report numbers, header numbers, or other four-digit numbers, they might also be replaced. Therefore, before formal batch processing, it's best to validate the rules with a small number of sample files. If there are many four-digit numbers in the document, the rules need to be further narrowed based on the actual content to avoid incorrect replacements.
Step 4: Fill in Replacement Content According to Corresponding Rows
In the keyword list, each row typically corresponds to a set of find and replace relationships. The first row on the left corresponds to the first row on the right, and the second row on the left corresponds to the second row on the right. When filling in, maintain the same order; otherwise, errors like a month being replaced by a year or vice versa might occur if the replacement content is misplaced.
The corresponding relationship in this case can be summarized as: replace April or May with August; replace any four-digit year with 2026. After processing this way, the original date "April 13, 2017" will become "August 13, 2026." Since no search rule was set for the number 13, it will be preserved.
The interface also prompts "Leave blank to delete," meaning if the right-side replaced keyword is empty, the software might delete the matched content. This feature is very useful for batch cleaning of specific text, but if the goal is replacement rather than deletion, ensure the correct new keyword is filled in on the right side.
Step 5: Set the Output Location and Start Processing
After completing the processing options, click "Next." From the top process bar, you can see that the subsequent steps are "Set Save Location" and "Start Processing." Although the screenshot does not show the specific details of these two pages, it can be reasonably inferred from the step names that the user needs to specify the save location for the processed PDFs and then start the batch task.
It is recommended to save the output files to a new folder rather than directly overwriting the source files. Batch replacement involves multiple files, and if the rules are written incorrectly, overwriting source files increases recovery costs. Keeping the original files and outputting the processed PDFs to a separate directory facilitates before-and-after comparison and makes it easier to adjust rules if issues are found.
Once processing starts, the software will perform find and replace on the PDFs one by one according to the file list. After completion, you should spot-check at least a few PDFs, especially files of different types, dates, and identifiers, to confirm the replacement results meet expectations. If the number of files is very large, prioritize checking pages containing key rules, such as covers, headers, footers, or fixed information areas.
Frequently Asked Questions and Notes
1. Must the PDF contain selectable text? Yes, text find and replace usually relies on the text content within the PDF. If a PDF is a pure scanned image, it might appear to have words but cannot be selected or copied, making direct replacement impossible. When encountering scanned files, you need to first confirm the text recognition status.
2. Can using formula-based fuzzy search cause incorrect replacements? It's possible. Fuzzy search is more powerful, but the rules must be formulated more cautiously. For example, "\d{4}" is very suitable for matching years but might also match other four-digit identifiers. It's recommended to test on a small scale first before batch processing all files.
3. Can multiple keywords be replaced at once? As seen in the interface, the keyword list supports multiple lines of input, so you can set up multiple groups of replacement rules. The key is to ensure the left and right sides correspond by row and that the meaning of each rule is clearly confirmed.
4. What if the result is incorrect after processing? If you followed the suggestion to save to a new directory, the original PDFs are still preserved, and you can adjust the rules and re-process. If you overwrote the source files directly, recovery would be difficult. Therefore, backing up the source files before batch processing is very important.
5. Is this method only suitable for PDFs? This article demonstrates a function within the PDF tools. The software interface also shows categories for Word tools, Excel tools, PowerPoint tools, etc., indicating it is designed for batch processing scenarios involving various office files. For files like doc, docx, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx, you need to enter the corresponding tool to check the specific processing methods.
Summary: Using Batch Tools to Process PDF Keywords Is More Stable and Efficient Than Manual Modification
When keywords in multiple PDF files are variable but follow patterns, using wildcards or formula-based fuzzy search can significantly improve processing efficiency. This article, through a date replacement example, demonstrated how to select "Find and Replace Keywords in PDF" in HeSoft Doc Batch Tool , import multiple PDFs, enable "Use Formula-Based Fuzzy Text Search," and complete batch replacement using rules like "April|May" and "\d{4}."
The value of this method lies not just in saving a few clicks, but in standardizing the repetitive file processing workflow: first import files, then configure rules, output uniformly, and finally spot-check the results. For office users who frequently handle reports, contracts, notices, and archived documents, reasonable use of batch processing software can reduce significant repetitive labor and lower the risk of manual omission errors. The next time you need to uniformly modify multiple PDF keywords, you might consider first organizing the files into the same folder, then using fuzzy search rules for small-scale testing, and after confirming correctness, executing the batch process.