When multiple PDF files contain keywords with similar formats but not entirely consistent content, opening each file to search and replace is very time-consuming. This article takes batch modification of months and years in PDFs as an example to explain how to use HeSoft Doc Batch Tool to search and replace keywords in multiple PDFs at once through wildcard or formula fuzzy search methods. It is suitable for batch text revision scenarios such as contracts, reports, notices, and archived documents.
In daily office work, PDF files are often used for external distribution, archiving, and circulation. The problem is that when dates, project names, version numbers, or fixed explanatory text across multiple PDFs need to be uniformly modified, ordinary PDF readers usually can only search and replace file by file and position by position. This is especially challenging when the content is not exactly the same—for example, some files say April while others say May, and the year might be different numbers like 2017, 2018, or 2023. Manual processing is not only slow but also prone to missed changes. This article addresses this issue: using HeSoft Doc Batch Tool to perform batch fuzzy search and keyword replacement across multiple PDF files using wildcards or formulas, delegating repetitive tasks to office software for completion.
As seen in the screenshot, this example involves processing 4 PDF files. Before processing, the date on the PDF page was April 13, 2017; after processing, the month is replaced with August, and the year is replaced with 2026, resulting in August 13, 2026. This process does not target just one fixed word but simultaneously locates months and years through fuzzy matching rules, making it highly suitable for batch revision of similar PDF documents.
Applicable Scenarios: Which PDFs Are Suitable for Batch Find and Replace Using Wildcards
PDF batch fuzzy find and replace is suitable for all scenarios requiring unified text modification across multiple PDFs. For instance, an administrative department needs to change old dates to new dates in a batch of notices; a project team needs to replace an old project name with a new one in multiple reports; legal or contract management personnel need to batch update years, months, and serial numbers in contract templates; and document archivists need to uniformly replace old keywords in historical versions with new standard expressions.
Unlike ordinary exact search, the value of fuzzy search with wildcards or formulas lies in its ability to match a category of text, rather than only one exactly identical word. For example, the month could be April or May, and the year could be any 4-digit number. If you write search items one by one, you would need to list a large number of possible values; but by using a formula, you can use April|May to represent multiple optional months, and \d{4} to represent 4 digits, thus batch-matching text with the same format but different content. This is also a core advantage of batch file processing office software: reducing repetitive clicks, lowering the probability of missed changes, and making the file processing workflow more controllable.
Result Preview: PDF Text Changes Before and After Processing
Before starting the operation, let's first look at the example files and modification results. In the image below, there are 4 PDF files in the folder, with filenames 1.pdf, 2.pdf, 3.pdf, and 4.pdf respectively. In actual work, you can also import more PDFs at once, as long as they belong to the same batch of documents requiring uniform replacement.
Opening one of the PDFs before processing, you can see the date on the page is April 13, 2017. The areas highlighted by the red box are the month April and the year 2017 respectively; these two positions are the targets of this batch find and replace. Since the year might be inconsistent across different PDFs, using fuzzy matching rules is more suitable than only searching for a single fixed year.
After processing, open the output PDF to see that the original April 13, 2017 has become August 13, 2026. That is, the software replaced the matched month with August, and the matched 4-digit year with 2026, while the day number 13 in the middle remained unchanged. For a large number of structurally similar PDF reports, this method can significantly save verification and modification time.
Operation Steps: Using HeSoft Doc Batch Tool to Batch Replace PDF Keywords
Step 1: Enter the PDF Tool and Select the Find and Replace Function
After opening HeSoft Doc Batch Tool , select PDF Tools from the function categories on the left. The interface will display multiple PDF-related batch processing functions, such as PDF Add Password Protection, PDF Add Watermark, PDF to Word, PDF to JPG Image, etc. The one to use here is the first item: Find and Replace Keywords in PDF. The description of this function is batch find and replace keywords in PDF file content, which perfectly matches the requirement of this article.
In this step, the operational goal is very clear: first find the specialized entry for PDF text replacement, rather than entering conversion, encryption, or watermarking functions. After clicking Find and Replace Keywords in PDF, the software will enter a step-by-step wizard page, where you will subsequently complete file selection, processing option settings, save location settings, and start processing.
Step 2: Add the PDF Files to Be Batch Processed
After entering the function page, you can see operation options at the top such as Add File, Import Files from Folder, Clear, and More. If you are only processing a few PDFs, you can click Add File to select them individually; if all PDFs are located in the same folder, using Import Files from Folder is more efficient. In the screenshot, 4 PDF files have been imported, and the list displays serial number, name, path, extension, creation time, and modification time, with a summary at the bottom showing that the record count is 4.
The key to this step is confirming that the files to be processed are complete. It is recommended to check two points before clicking Next: First, whether the number of PDFs in the list matches the number of target files in the folder; second, whether any PDFs not requiring processing have been mistakenly added. If a certain file in the list should not be processed, it can be deleted via the operation area in the corresponding row; if the overall list is incorrect, you can use Clear and re-import. After confirming correctness, click Next at the bottom.
Step 3: Choose to Use Formula for Fuzzy Text Search
After entering the processing options settings page, you first need to set the search method. The interface provides two methods: Exact Text Search and Use Formula for Fuzzy Text Search. This example deals with keywords that are similar but not identical, so Use Formula for Fuzzy Text Search is selected. Here, formula-based fuzzy search can be understood as a more flexible wildcard matching method, suitable for finding text with certain patterns like months, years, serial numbers, and codes.
In the screenshot, the left side is the list of keywords to search for, and the right side is the list of keywords to replace with. The two sides correspond by row: content matched by row 1 on the left will be replaced by row 1 on the right; content matched by row 2 on the left will be replaced by row 2 on the right. In this example, line 1 on the left inputs April|May, meaning match April or May; line 1 on the right inputs August, meaning replace the matched month with August. Line 2 on the left inputs \d{4}, meaning match 4 digits; line 2 on the right inputs 2026, meaning replace the matched 4-digit year with 2026.
If your files require replacing other rules, you can continue adding rows accordingly. For example, to uniformly replace multiple old company abbreviations with a new one, you can write multiple matchable items on the left and the unified result on the right. However, note that the number of rows and order on both sides must correspond, otherwise the replacement result may not meet expectations. After completing the settings, click Next to enter the save location setting.
Step 4: Set Save Location and Start Processing
At the top of the wizard, you can see Step 3 is Set Save Location, and Step 4 is Start Processing. To protect the original files, it is recommended to save the processed PDFs to a new folder, making it convenient to compare differences before and after processing later. If you are just testing whether the rules are correct, it is even more inadvisable to directly overwrite the original files; instead, output to a temporary directory first, and only use them for formal files after confirming the results meet expectations.
After setting the save location, proceed to the Start Processing step. The software will sequentially perform find and replace on the PDFs according to the previously imported list. For batch documents in office scenarios, the advantage of this process-oriented operation is clarity and traceability: first determine the file scope, then determine the matching rules, then determine the output location, and finally process uniformly, avoiding chaos caused by opening and modifying files simultaneously.
Step 5: Open the Processed PDF to Verify Results
After processing finishes, open the PDFs in the output directory for verification. It is recommended to spot-check at least a few files, focusing on three types of locations: first, whether the target keywords have been replaced; second, whether content that should not be replaced was mistakenly matched; third, whether the page layout is still readable. In this example, opening the PDF shows that the month changed from April to August, the year changed from 2017 to 2026, while the day 13 remained unchanged, indicating that the formula rules achieved the expected effect.
Common Questions and Notes
1. Why Use Fuzzy Search Instead of Exact Search
If all PDFs contained only exactly identical keywords, such as all saying April 13, 2017, then Exact Text Search could also accomplish the task. However, in reality, many files have content differences, such as different months, years, or serial numbers. In such cases, using Formula for Fuzzy Text Search allows you to use a single rule to match a category of content, reducing the workload of inputting numerous search items and lowering the risk of missing a variant.
2. How Do the Left and Right Keyword Lists Correspond
The keyword list to search for and the keyword list to replace with correspond by row. That is, row 1 on the left corresponds to row 1 on the right, row 2 on the left corresponds to row 2 on the right. In the screenshot, April|May corresponds to August, and \d{4} corresponds to 2026. When setting up, do not disrupt the row order arbitrarily, and do not leave meaningless empty rows on one side, as this may affect the replacement results.
3. Can Scanned PDFs Directly Replace Text
If the text in the PDF is selectable, it is generally more suitable for performing find and replace. If the PDF is a scanned image, the page appears to have text, but the underlying layer might just be an image, and ordinary text find and replace may not be able to recognize this content. When encountering scanned documents, you need to first confirm whether the PDF contains recognizable text before deciding whether to use this function for processing.
4. How to Avoid Incorrect Replacements When Using Formulas or Wildcards
The more flexible the fuzzy search, the more attention must be paid to the matching scope. For example, \d{4} will match all 4-digit numbers; if the PDF contains report numbers, page codes, or other 4-digit numbers besides the year, they might be replaced together. Therefore, before formal processing, it is advisable to test with a small number of files first to confirm that the rules will not inadvertently affect other content. If necessary, you can make the search rules more specific, for example by combining surrounding fixed text to narrow the matching range.
5. Is It Necessary to Back Up the Original PDFs
It is recommended to always keep the original PDFs. Batch replacement is a batch write operation that affects multiple files at once. Even if the software provides clear processing steps, you should develop the habit of backing up first, processing in batch, and finally spot-checking for verification. This is especially important for contracts, financial documents, formal reports, and other critical files—output results should be saved to a separate directory.
Summary: Turn Repetitive PDF Modifications into a One-Time Configuration with Batch Processing
Through the Find and Replace Keywords in PDF function of HeSoft Doc Batch Tool , the repetitive modification work across multiple PDFs can be concentrated into a single workflow. In the example of this article, 4 PDF files underwent formula-based fuzzy search to replace the months April or May with August, and the 4-digit year with 2026, achieving batch, unified, and verifiable PDF keyword replacement.
If you frequently need to process PDF files such as reports, contracts, notices, manuals, and archived materials, it is recommended to incorporate this type of batch find and replace workflow into your daily office standards: first organize the files, select the find and replace function in the PDF tool, then set rules using wildcards or formulas, and finally output to a new directory and spot-check the results. This not only reduces repetitive labor but also improves the accuracy and efficiency of multi-file processing.