Built-in PDF indexing vs PDF indexing plug-in

Can you explain to me what the difference is between the pdf indexing that is built into Edocman compared with what the PDF indexing plugin will do? Both seem to index pdf content so it can be found with a search. I want to make sure that Joomla smart search will find results for pdf content (not just pdf title or descriptions).

Edocman description:
Edocman also has feature to search for text inside uploaded files. Indexing happens automatically on our servers on upload with PDF, Microsoft Office documents.

PDF Indexing description:
Indexing pdf, doc and docx documents and save content of these documents into database for searching.

I just want to check before I buy the plugin.

Thanks
Karen

Hi Karen,
Edocman has PDF Indexer plugin, it is used to index (scan and stored) PDF or DOC (x) document details. That function is the same with PDF Indexer extension. The difference here is the PDF Indexer plugin of Edocman can only be used to index one document on one time while PDF Indexer can be used to index all documents of Edocman on one times.
In general, if your Edocman system has a lot of existing document, using PDF Indexer will save your time when indexing content of all documents. But if you want to build new document site, you just need Edocman.
I hope my explanation is clear to you.
Thanks
Dam

Hi Dam,
Our hosting provider has recently disabled various PHP functions including popen which means Edocman can no longer index PDFs. Does the PDF Indexer also need popen? If so is there any other solution that would allow indexing of Edocman PDFs that does not rely on any of the PHP functions show_source, system, shell_exec, passthru, exec, popen, proc_open, allow_url_fopen or pcntl_exec

Thanks
Bernard

Hi Bernard,
PDF Indexer feature need PHP function "popen" enabled. If you disable that function, the PDF indexer won't work anymore. We don't have other solution to index content of documents.
Thanks
Dam

Hi Dam,
My research shows that popen is increasingly being disabled on shared hosting for security reasons. It might be worth you investigating www.itoctopus.com/files-search-a-free-jo...search-through-files

I have tested it and it does work without using third part libraries and is well documented, free and available for modification. Of course it would need work to integrate indexing outcomes to an Edocman record rather than to the file itself.
Cheers
Bernard

Hi Bernard,
You can check if the popen is enabled or not by goting to Back-end -> System -> System Information -> PHP Information and check value of field: "disable_functions"
Thanks
Dam

Hi Dam,
I have already established it is disabled and the hosting provider will not re-enable it as it is a system wide PHP function. This broke PHP indexing for our Edocman install. Hence my original post.
Cheers
Bernard

Unfortunately, the PDF indexing function will not work if popen isn't enabled, and we don't have different solution
Thanks
Dam