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I'm looking for preferably free software that will allow one to search a private collection of PDF's and other document and e-book formats for words or sentences in the book.

My purpose is to quickly find citations and relative passages based on search queries. I would like the query to present the file that contains the match, the page number, a sample of the passage, and option to open it up to read it in the passage's entirety. I don't need all these feature but does something like this exist?

I run Linux, FreeBSD, OSX, and Windows, so software for any of these operating systems will do.

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Hi jonschipp, we generally try to discourage shopping recommendation questions (see blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/11/qa-is-hard-lets-go-shopping for more details), as they tend to be localized to one particular situation and the answers can become obsolete over time. – jonsca♦ Nov 15 '12 at 5:11
While the information this question generates may date over time, it seems like it could be immensely valuable for a lot of folks now. Perhaps it could be reworded to ask if anyone has found a successful way to search the text of a collection of pdfs, etc. This may yield a software solution or some other technical workaround. – Mary Jo Finch Nov 22 '12 at 17:33

closed as not constructive by jonsca♦ Nov 15 '12 at 5:07

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