Search API - Introduction

Overview

The Issuu search service accepts search requests as input, and returns search results as output.

  • Search requests are simple HTTP requests to the Issuu search engine.
  • Search results are returned in JSON format, as specified in the search request
  • Search users can make requests with Javascript, Flash, or forms in a web browser. (See Search Request )

JSON results can be used directly by Javascript but probably most programming environment can access it. (See Search Response)

Indexing

When a publication is added to Issuu, the publication is indexed by our search engine. All text in the publication is converted to lower-case during indexing. Therefore there is no difference between searching for "Bob" or "bob": searches are not case-sensitive. Text from a publication is indexed on a per-page as well as per-document basis, therefore searches can return a page or a document.

Documents can be viewed via a link to the document:

http://issuu.com/user_name/docs/document_name/

Or a link to a specific page within the document, in this case page 3:

http://issuu.com/user_name/docs/document_name/3

Information that applies to the entire document (user, title, tags, etc) is also inherited by the individual pages of the document. See the Appendix for a list of indexed fields.

Encoding

The Issuu Search service expects and returns UTF-8 encoded data. Requests to the service should be URL-encoded.

For more information on UTF-8, visit www.utf-8.com. For more information on URL-encoding, visit www.w3.org.