# Search for "Files" and within them (pdf text) **URL:** \ **Category:** Ideas & Features\ **Tags:** search, files\ **Created:** [October 25, 2023, 9:13am UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/search-for-files-and-within-them-pdf-text/5331 "2023-10-25T09:13:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dukevannori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8c91f0/32.png) [@dukevannori](https://community.fibery.io/u/dukevannori)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2023, 9:13am UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/search-for-files-and-within-them-pdf-text/5331/1 "2023-10-25T09:13:09Z")
Hi, I was wondering if there is a way to collect all linked files of all entities and search through them. Lately i was searching a lot for pdf-files we linked to tasks but wasnt able to find them by task name - as it was too long ago. so i thought it would be great to search for them, but I coulnt find a way to limit the search to “files” Also adding to this it would be amazing if the search function could “look into” the files and find stuff, like DevonThink or even Obsidian can. (if both are not present please move this to Ideas) Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Oshyan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/oshyan/32/11431_2.png) [@Oshyan](https://community.fibery.io/u/Oshyan)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2023, 9:10pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/search-for-files-and-within-them-pdf-text/5331/2 "2023-10-25T21:10:09Z")
Yes, it would be great if Files were a filterable “Type”/“Database”, like Views, et.c However this topic refers to what is almost certainly two separate feature requests, so I would suggest creating a new request topic for this (i.e. indexing the contents of attachments): > [@dukevannori](#): > > Also adding to this it would be amazing if the search function could “look into” the files and find stuff, like DevonThink or even Obsidian can. ---
**Author:** ![cannibalflea](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/cannibalflea/32/318_2.png) [@cannibalflea](https://community.fibery.io/u/cannibalflea)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2023, 11:17pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/search-for-files-and-within-them-pdf-text/5331/3 "2023-10-25T23:17:34Z")
Searching within files would be a really great addition. I think there are a bunch of related search items where we are generally asking to search a larger variety of fields and types. It would be amazing if Fibery were to eventually get the ability to annotate, link and transclude content within PDFs (and other files). That is something that i often look at with a bit of envy with some of the more advanced PKM tools 😁 Finally, given the amazing things you can do with Fibery AI, it would be really interesting if you were able to run AI tasks like summarization on file attachments to populate the entities and generating new insights. ---
**Author:** ![Oshyan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/oshyan/32/11431_2.png) [@Oshyan](https://community.fibery.io/u/Oshyan)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2023, 3:58pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/search-for-files-and-within-them-pdf-text/5331/4 "2023-10-26T15:58:17Z")
I consider it somewhat unlikely that this kind of deep attachment support will be implemented any time soon. But Obsidian already has Annotator, and apparently is now planning native PDF annotation support. So once again I must plug my project idea and how it would help solve both of these problems (at least in some way) 😁 > [@Proposing development of a Fibery \<-\> Obsidian sync plugin (independent, open source)](https://community.fibery.io/t/proposing-development-of-a-fibery-obsidian-sync-plugin-independent-open-source/4514): > > I’m putting this here, though it could arguably belong in #api-programming or somewhere else. [I have talked before about the possibility of developing an Obsidian plugin to sync Fibery with Obsidian](https://community.fibery.io/t/personal-vs-team-knowledge-management-pkm-tkm-sync/2514/16) (not just a one-time import), and now I think I want to see if we can really make this happen. At this stage it’s just an idea and a bit of funding, I’m not a developer and don’t have a coder selected for this yet, so definitely seeking developer and funder support, as well as just ideas and feedback… ---
**Author:** ![dukevannori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8c91f0/32.png) [@dukevannori](https://community.fibery.io/u/dukevannori)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2023, 10:45am UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/search-for-files-and-within-them-pdf-text/5331/5 "2023-10-27T10:45:36Z")
To that note of Obsidian - off-topic in this case… yet loosely related: the more i use Fibery, the less i use Obsidian. although i really miss so many aspects of it. the speed, the native app, the offline availability. but in a team environment it is completely useless as forcing them to use two different tools is against the usecase of fibery … its sad, that due to the great and immense use of plugins obsidian becomes a beast, that is completely the opposite of “it creates markdown, and that is readable by any other app…” Canvas is a great example - it would be great to use - but as it is incompatible to use outside of obsidian its kinda not useful outside of my PKM. and at the moment and in my usecase - my PKM is my TKM … i neglected all personal writing in favor of creating more team usable information … but thats me and how i function … ---
**Author:** ![Oshyan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/oshyan/32/11431_2.png) [@Oshyan](https://community.fibery.io/u/Oshyan)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2023, 9:13pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/search-for-files-and-within-them-pdf-text/5331/6 "2023-10-27T21:13:06Z")
> [@dukevannori](#): > > but in a team environment it is completely useless as forcing them to use two different tools is against the usecase of fibery … What if you didn’t have to choose? Your work in Obsidian could be synced back to Fibery for collaboration, and back into Obsidian for when you wanted to use that (e.g. mobile, speed, etc.). > [@dukevannori](#): > > Canvas is a great example - it would be great to use - but as it is incompatible to use outside of obsidian its kinda not useful outside of my PKM. and at the moment and in my usecase - my PKM is my TKM … i neglected all personal writing in favor of creating more team usable information … but thats me and how i function … I would push back against this characterization a bit for two reasons. First: they have opened the Canvas format, so anyone else could easily implement it if they wanted to. Second: Canvas just stores links to .md and standard URLs, etc., so at the very _least_ even if Fibery never implemented their canvas format for Fibery Whiteboard, a sync plugin could still pretty easily list the resources in a Canvas just as a set of links that _would_ work in Fibery. And in some cases could even do so with some limited organization, e.g. Groups in Canvas could become Headers/Sections in Fibery. Given the above, I think it would still be tremendously valuable to have the Obsidian ↔ Fibery sync and to be able to use Obsidian Canvas on Fibery content, even though it would not be viewable or editable 1:1 in Fibery. ---
**Author:** ![dukevannori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8c91f0/32.png) [@dukevannori](https://community.fibery.io/u/dukevannori)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2023, 11:00pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/search-for-files-and-within-them-pdf-text/5331/7 "2023-10-27T23:00:49Z")
you might be right. maybe I’m just fallen off the obsidian wagon 🙂 i actually made a obsidian to fibery sync in n8n. should be possible to make a push back as well… maybe a project for a cold winter night. at the moment I’m more struggling with setting up a decent project management system that is easy to use. and to find files that are attached to these projects and tasks (to bring the topic back) when i don’t know the name of the task anymore … ---
**Author:** ![dukevannori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8c91f0/32.png) [@dukevannori](https://community.fibery.io/u/dukevannori)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2023, 1:23pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/search-for-files-and-within-them-pdf-text/5331/8 "2023-12-22T13:23:41Z")
getting back to this and the initial question: any way to create a view showing all Attachments. Like a file browser? the deeper we are in our project the more often i am trying to find se files that are in the system but I can’t remember the exact task or project name that it finally got attached to. so getting around that and simply see all pdf files in the database would be great. ---
**Author:** ![dukevannori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8c91f0/32.png) [@dukevannori](https://community.fibery.io/u/dukevannori)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2023, 1:24pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/search-for-files-and-within-them-pdf-text/5331/9 "2023-12-22T13:24:38Z")
or having a “kind: attachment” search option ---
**Author:** ![Oshyan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/oshyan/32/11431_2.png) [@Oshyan](https://community.fibery.io/u/Oshyan)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2022, 7:03pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/search-for-files-and-within-them-pdf-text/5331/10 "2022-01-23T19:03:48Z")
Currently it appears that attached files on Entities do not show up in the normal Search (“quick search”) results. I think Search should index attached file names. Clicking on a result in the search should probably take you to that entity, ideally to an anchor link of the file section, and even more ideally highlighting the file in question. Alternatively it could just open the file directly in a new tab, as the current open-file behavior works from an Entity view. ---
**Author:** ![cannibalflea](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/cannibalflea/32/318_2.png) [@cannibalflea](https://community.fibery.io/u/cannibalflea)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 2:34am UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/search-for-files-and-within-them-pdf-text/5331/11 "2022-01-26T02:34:20Z")
I think treating files like an entity might be a good approach. That way we might also be able to add some additional metadata (things like draft/final, revision, etc.). I think this also helps by allowing multiple entities to reference the same file without having to upload it multiple times. I know that some of this is possible to do with a custom database with a file field but we it would be better if this was a special entity like users and had some nice file specific things like a file browser, version control (and who knows in the future even some editors). I know, I got carried away again! ---
**Author:** ![Oshyan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/oshyan/32/11431_2.png) [@Oshyan](https://community.fibery.io/u/Oshyan)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 3:03am UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/search-for-files-and-within-them-pdf-text/5331/12 "2022-01-26T03:03:35Z")
Oh, that’s quite an interesting idea! I certainly like it in concept. ---
**Author:** ![Haslien](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/haslien/32/493_2.png) [@Haslien](https://community.fibery.io/u/Haslien)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2022, 9:11am UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/search-for-files-and-within-them-pdf-text/5331/13 "2022-01-27T09:11:09Z")
> [@cannibalflea](#): > > I think treating files like an entity might be a good approach If files are to be treated as an entity, could you use Fibery as some sort of asset/brand library? 🤔 I mean, you could tag images with fields, then search by those fields? Documents containing textual guides with image examples? Databases containing types of assets, like Icons, Illustrations, Photos, Logos, Colours, etc., with metadata tags like “Approved”, “Facebook”, etc. Somewhat already possible, but then the focus is more on the entity in the database that simply has attachment than it being the item of focus. ---
**Author:** ![Oshyan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/oshyan/32/11431_2.png) [@Oshyan](https://community.fibery.io/u/Oshyan)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2022, 5:41pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/search-for-files-and-within-them-pdf-text/5331/14 "2022-01-27T17:41:05Z")
Yeah, it could be very cool! Of course, as much as this would be a great use of Fibery (in my view), it seems out of scope for what they have so far expressed wanting to focus on. And would probably require some adjustments to pricing again, or maybe just the option to buy “storage nodes” or something as the team file repository grows. But personally I’d be in favor of that! ---
**Author:** ![B\_Sp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e8c25b/32.png) [@B\_Sp](https://community.fibery.io/u/B_Sp)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2022, 8:53pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/search-for-files-and-within-them-pdf-text/5331/15 "2022-01-28T20:53:06Z")
I agree with this, I’d be happy for a simple implementation where you could just search on filenames. Sometimes you know you attached a file to an entity but can’t remember where, and can’t remember the whole file, but you can remember some of the name. If you could find it in search that would help a lot! ---
**Author:** ![cannibalflea](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/cannibalflea/32/318_2.png) [@cannibalflea](https://community.fibery.io/u/cannibalflea)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2022, 11:16pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/search-for-files-and-within-them-pdf-text/5331/16 "2022-01-28T23:16:31Z")
My main incentive in treating files as entities is to allow you to reference them in text and connect them to multiple entities. This is how fibery fundamentally works so I feel it is not stretch to apply it to files. Having files (at least file names) searchable is just a nice bonus 😀 > [@Oshyan](#): > > maybe just the option to buy “storage nodes” or something as the team file repository grows That would be a good option. I also think maybe [allowing an integration with major cloud storage platforms](https://community.fibery.io/t/approved-attachments-in-the-document/1470/8) so that files are actually stored elsewhere could also be a good short-term solution. Given that currently you cannot backup your files out of fibery or really do anything interesting like sync or edit, I think going in this direction in the short term might give users what they need without a lot of investment in the storage stack. Fibery can always add that service to the platform in the future. ---
**Author:** ![Oshyan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/oshyan/32/11431_2.png) [@Oshyan](https://community.fibery.io/u/Oshyan)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2022, 11:33pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/search-for-files-and-within-them-pdf-text/5331/17 "2022-01-28T23:33:03Z")
> [@cannibalflea](#): > > I also think maybe [allowing an integration with major cloud storage platforms](https://community.fibery.io/t/approved-attachments-in-the-document/1470/8) so that files are actually stored elsewhere could also be a good short-term solution. Given that currently you cannot backup your files out of fibery or really do anything interesting like sync or edit, I think going in this direction in the short term might give users what they need without a lot of investment in the storage stack. Fibery can always add that service to the platform in the future. Oh yes, that’s an excellent point. And this might allow for importing data that is created in other tools like Dropbox, e.g. tagging, and being able to reflect and use that in Fibery, which would be very cool! You could then simply augment the file storage synced data in the normal Fibery way. It also has the nice properties of avoiding that extra storage burden and possible related infrastructure changes, as well as being implementable (I would think) mostly within the demonstrated capabilities of the existing integration system. I think this is a very good concept, and should probably be its own feature request. I see there is _some_ mention of this in other topics, but I don’t see an actual, stand-alone request. Perhaps you’d like to make one?