Using HoudahSpot to search parallel PDF files
Thread poster: Hans Lenting
Hans Lenting
Hans Lenting
Netherlands
Member (2006)
German to Dutch
Aug 30, 2018

HoudahSpot (https://www.houdah.com/houdahSpot/ , $ 29,00) uses the index that Spotlight creates.

With HoudahSpot it is very easy to search terms in folders that contain parallel PDF files for both the source and target language.

You can either change HoudahSpot's default settings (File > Save As Default) or create different templates for different language codes (File > Save A
... See more
HoudahSpot (https://www.houdah.com/houdahSpot/ , $ 29,00) uses the index that Spotlight creates.

With HoudahSpot it is very easy to search terms in folders that contain parallel PDF files for both the source and target language.

You can either change HoudahSpot's default settings (File > Save As Default) or create different templates for different language codes (File > Save As Template).

I've set HoudahSpot to search the folder ~/Documents/PDF for all PDF files that have the language code de-DE in their name:

Screen Shot 2018-08-30 at 10.09.25

Once the found PDF files containing your search term are listed in the Results pane, you can easily open them with QuickView or Preview to see the search term in context.

If the context is correct, you can decide to open the corresponding PDF file for your target language. You can do this either manually, or automatically via macro (in Keyboard Maestro) or possibly via an Automator workflow or AppleScript (if you don't won't to use Keyboard Maestro). You can start HoudahSpot searches from third party tools like Butler, LaunchBar or Alfred.

I'll post the advanced Keyboard Maestro macro as soon as it is finished (currently I'm improving it).

Via the View > Details menu you can instruct HoudahSpot to directly display the PDF selected in the Results column:

Screen Shot 2018-08-30 at 10.45.35

[Edited at 2018-08-30 12:39 GMT]
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Emanuele Vacca
 
Hans Lenting
Hans Lenting
Netherlands
Member (2006)
German to Dutch
TOPIC STARTER
Macro Sep 3, 2018

You can download the macro here:

https://forum.keyboardmaestro.com/uploads/default/original/3X/a/0/a03054cc42e494e26972d3e5458cf03ab3ef3f0e.kmmacros


  • Enter your search string in HoudahSpot.
  • Open the relevant source PDF in Skim.
  • Run the macro.
  • The sea... See more
You can download the macro here:

https://forum.keyboardmaestro.com/uploads/default/original/3X/a/0/a03054cc42e494e26972d3e5458cf03ab3ef3f0e.kmmacros


  • Enter your search string in HoudahSpot.
  • Open the relevant source PDF in Skim.
  • Run the macro.
  • The search string will be selected in the source pdf.
  • The corresponding target PDF will be opened at the correct page.
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Emanuele Vacca
 
Hans Lenting
Hans Lenting
Netherlands
Member (2006)
German to Dutch
TOPIC STARTER
Update Sep 6, 2018

Here you can watch a demo:

https://youtu.be/Rnc2TkP812M

Here you can download the two macros involved (one to search a word that contains the text cursor, one to sync the source and tar
... See more
Here you can watch a demo:

https://youtu.be/Rnc2TkP812M

Here you can download the two macros involved (one to search a word that contains the text cursor, one to sync the source and target PDFs):

https://forum.keyboardmaestro.com/uploads/default/original/3X/2/7/270afe59ba732a802f556ee8bcbc8560ceff9255.kmmacros

https://forum.keyboardmaestro.com/uploads/default/original/3X/3/5/35a8141688af788460c420352327c6676969dd50.kmmacros

You will have to edit the language codes in the macro according to your needs:

2
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Using HoudahSpot to search parallel PDF files






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