[wp-hackers] Indexing documents for search

[Eric Mann]

There's a free plugin I maintain that allows people to upload external
files to a WordPress installation.  It's meant to bridge the gap between
posts and exportable content (like PDFs and Word documents) by allowing a
site to host downloadable content.

Yesterday, I had a request from a user asking if the plugin allowed him to
search within his uploaded documents.  Basically, he wants the regular
WordPress search field to be able to search within PDF and DOCX files.  I
know there are some additional modules for PHP that will enable this ...
but I'm wondering if there's a way to programatically index the content of
uploaded documents that might be more readily available to a basic PHP
setup (like those common to people who host with GoDaddy, BlueHost, and the
like).

Does anyone have any experience extending WP's search functionality to
include the content of uploaded, non-DB housed documents?