SharePoint 2007 and Adobe PDF

[Updated 17/07 to correct folder string]

If you are deploying Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007, even if you are planning a vanilla deployment (i.e. no bespoke development, using only out-of-the-box features) there is one piece of bespoke configuration you will likely still want - the ability to index and search for Adobe PDF files.

There is a great post over on SharePoint blogs, written by S.S.Ahmed, detailing how to add PDF support to your MOSS box. However, Adobe have made some changes to their use of iFilters and there is now a shorter and easier way that doesn't require registry edits or resetting your web server.

The following process works on my demo build for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Default names and file locations have been used - e.g. SharedServices1. I named the PDF icon as 'pdficon.gif'. If you have used different names and locations, substitute as necessary.

1. Download and install Adobe Acrobat Reader 8 on the server (the reader now includes the iFilter by default, previously you had to install the iFilter separately)
2. Add the PDF file type to your search index (note that this has to be completed for each index, i.e. each Shared Service)
1. Open your Search Settings - SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration - SharedServices1 - Search Settings
2. Select File Types
3. Click Add File Type
4. Enter pdf in the text box (labelled File extension) and click OK
3. Download the PDF icon (select 'small 17 x 17') from http://www.adobe.com/misc/linking.html
   1. Give the icon a name (I use pdficon.gif)
   2. Save the icon in c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\IMAGES
4. Edit the Docicon.xml file to include the PDF icon
1. Navigate to c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\XML
2. Open the DOCICON.XML file in Notepad (or an XML editor). You should see that the file has two main tags - ByProgID and ByExtension
3. Within the ByExtension tag, add an entry for the PDF icon 'Mapping Key="pdf" Value="pdficon.gif" /' (replace the single quotes with angle brackets)
4. Save and close the file
5. Perform a full crawl of your content sources

That's all there is to it. Check that everything is working by doing a search for a file you know is a PDF document. The document should be listed in the results and should have the PDF icon displayed next to it.

Again, big thanks to S.S.Ahmed for writing the original 'how to' that this post is based on.

This post will be filed in the library under SharePoint

[Update: Apr 08] Adobe now have a 64-bit iFilter available. See http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/PDF_iFilter_8_-_64-bit_Support

[Update: May 08] Don't know if it is related to SP1 or Search Server 2008 specific, but had to perform an 'iisreset' to get the PDF icon to appear... If you do this on a live system, don't forget to warn people that SharePoint will be offline temporarily

Technorati tags: SharePoint, SharePoint 2007, MOSS 2007