MOSS Search is great because it not only crawls documents for search results, but it crawls the content inside the documents as well.  However, MOSS “out-of-the-box” will not crawl the content of PDF files.  Have no fear!  I wouldn’t be writing this blog if I didn’t know the steps to the solution.  Check out the following process:

The first step is to download and install the Adobe iFilter http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=2611

Before you run the installer on the server where your MOSS is located, stop the IIS Admin service by running IISReset /stop from your Command Prompt.  After the iFilter is finished installing, start the IIS Admin service by running IISReset /start.

Next go to your Shared Services site under SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration
 
Then click Search Settings under Search.
 
On the next screen, choose File Types.
 
Add the .pdf file type to the index list. In the box, simply type pdf.
 
You may also want the PDF icon to display within the search results itself.  Currently this icon is not available within SharePoint.  It is very easy to grab though.

Download the PDF icon (select ’small 17 x 17′) from http://www.adobe.com/misc/linking.html

Name the icon “pdficon.gif”.

Save the icon in the following location: c:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft Sharedweb server extensions12TemplateIMAGES

Next you will need to edit the .xml file that SharePoint uses to map file types to icons. This file is the DOCICON.XML file.  It is located here:  c:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft SharedWeb server extensions12TemplateXmlDOCICON.XML

Open the XML file in Notepad or SharePoint Designer.   Add the following code in the <ByExtension> section:  <Mapping Key=”pdf” Value=”pdficon.gif”/>.  Save the file.

Run iisreset from your command prompt.  When that is finished, run your Search crawls.  Now you should be able to search the contents of PDF files and have a PDF icon as display as the document image.