# Add support for searching pdf files in forum topics from AI personas

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/add-support-for-searching-pdf-files-in-forum-topics-from-ai-personas/390578>\
**Category:** Feature\
**Created:** [December 6, 2025, 12:48pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/add-support-for-searching-pdf-files-in-forum-topics-from-ai-personas/390578 "2025-12-06T12:48:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 1

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**Author:** ![Neil\_Evans2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/neil_evans2/32/492791_2.png) [@Neil\_Evans2](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Neil_Evans2)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2025, 12:48pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/add-support-for-searching-pdf-files-in-forum-topics-from-ai-personas/390578/1 "2025-12-06T12:48:09Z")

</div>

Current limitation:  
• Forum semantic search only indexes post text, not PDF attachments  
• PDF files aren’t searchable via /search AI toggle  
• To get round this, I had to manually upload PDFs separately to persona RAG

Proposed solution:  
• Extract text from PDF attachments during embedding generation  
• Index PDF contents alongside post text  
• Make PDF-attached topics discoverable via semantic search

Benefits:  
• Users find technical documentation via forum search  
• No need to duplicate content (forum post + RAG upload)  
• Better SEO (PDFs attached to indexed topics)  
• Simpler architecture (Search command just works)

If you were to implement this, i could potentially:

1. Remove forced tools (Search would naturally find PDF contents)
2. Eliminate RAG uploads entirely (everything in forum topics)
3. Simplify the system significantly

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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/add-support-for-searching-pdf-files-in-forum-topics-from-ai-personas/390578)._