To search a PDF on your Mac for a specific word or phrase, you can use the search function in the built-in Preview app.

The search function in Adobe Acrobat Reader allows you to locate words or phrases while working with PDF documents, even if it has been converted to PDF using character recognition technology (OCR).

To convert PDFs into Word files and on Mac, you should edit them with Google Docs or other third-party applications.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in Mar. 2014 and the video tutorial for this article published Dec. 2018; while this program might look a little different, the steps shown in this ...