Monday, August 24, 2015

Use Google to Search for Specific File Types

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Google is full of amazing features.

One of the best is the ability to search for specific documents based upon file types.

Perhaps you are looking for a Power Point (ppt or pptx) or an Adobe Acrobat file (pdf).

With Google, you can search for these files types, plus a whole lot more.

To do so, just type filetype:xxx search terms where xxx is the document type you are searching.  

For example, to search for PDFs concerning Hillary Clinton, enter 
filetype:pdf Hillary Clinton into Google:



Search result will return the desired documents.

Google indexes a number of common file types including:


  • Adobe Portable Document Format (.pdf)
  • Microsoft Excel (.xls, .xlsx)
  • Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx)
  • Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx)
  • Rich Text Format (.rtf, .wri)

In addition, a number of technical and lesser-known file types are also indexed and searchable:

  • Adobe Flash (.swf)
  • Adobe PostScript (.ps)
  • Autodesk Design Web Format (.dwf)
  • Google Earth (.kml, .kmz)
  • GPS eXchange Format (.gpx)
  • Hancom Hanword (.hwp)
  • HTML (.htm, .html, other file extensions)
  • OpenOffice presentation (.odp)
  • OpenOffice spreadsheet (.ods)
  • OpenOffice text (.odt)
  • Scalable Vector Graphics (.svg)
  • TeX/LaTeX (.tex)
  • Text (.txt, .text, other file extensions), including source code in common programming languages:Basic source code (.bas)
  • C/C++ source code (.c, .cc, .cpp, .cxx, .h, .hpp)
  • C# source code (.cs)
  • Java source code (.java)
  • Perl source code (.pl)
  • Python source code (.py)
  • Wireless Markup Language (.wml, .wap)
  • XML (.xml)

You can also use the Google Advanced Search page to limit your search to several options including filetypes.  

However, not all searchable file types are available in the dropdown filetype list.

Enjoy!

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