How do I search for text inside a PDF?

Is it easier for Mac OS X to search for text within a Microsoft Word document or a PDF file using Spotlight?

• You can assume that the Word doc and PDF are filled entirely with text.

• Answer:

  Generally, there's no difference. Spotlight does not search the text, it searches a database populated by metadata importer utilities. OS X supplies one that extracts the words from a PDF, and Microsoft provides one that does the same for Word docs. Ultimately, both are converted to plain text and shoved into the database the same way. Spotlight searches work on the database, and, from the perspective of search, the PDF content is indistinguishable from the a Word content.