Search Tips

Help with Keywords

Most queries can be written by entering the word or phrases you are interested in. To ask for more specific results, you could enter several words or phrases, seperated by commas, that describe the subject more precisely, such as: Hardware, printer. This query would generate records that contain the terms "Hardware," "printer," or both.
If you want to see records that refer to a series of words that occur in a specific order, such as "HP Deskjet printer," you could enter: HP Deskjet printer. This query returns records that contain all of these words in the exact sequence you specified, including stemmed variations of the search terms.
If you specify a search word with upper case letters, only words matching the exact case will be returned. (ex: "Narrows" would return items containing "Narrows bridge", but not things like "road narrows") Use all lower case letters to perform a case-insensitive search.

narrows

Narrows bridge

road narrows

Your results list will display a ranked list of records, with the most relevant records at the top.

Common Search Operators
Operator	Description	Examples
AND	Finds records containing both words that it joins.	Excel AND lock will find all records containing "Excel" and "lock".
OR	Finds records containing either of the words it joins.	Excel OR lock will find records containing the word "Excel" or the word "lock", but not necessarily both.
NOT	Finds records containing the word that precedes it but that do not contain the word(s) that follows it. NOTE: NOT can only be used with the AND and OR operators.	Excel NOT lock would find all records with the word "Excel", but would exclude any record with the word "lock" even if the word "Excel" was in the record.
,	(Comma) Finds records containing at least one of the words specified, ranking them using "the more, the better" approach. Records with the most occurrences of the words searched for are given the highest rank.

Additional Operators
Operator	Description	Examples
?	The question mark is a wildcard operator that represents any one character. You can use a ? to specify the first letter of a word.	?an would locate records with the following words: ran, pan, can, and ban.
*	The asterisk is a wildcard operator that represents one or more characters. However, the asterisk cannot be used to specify the first letter or letters of a word.	corp* would locate corporate, corporation, corporal, and corpulent
' '	Use single quotes to find stemmed variations of a word.	edit' finds edited, editing, and edition, among others
" "	Use double quotes to find exact matches only. Especially helpful in finding specific phrases. Note: Use of parentheses inside a set of double quotes will not work, parentheses performs another function, and by default is not treated as literal.	"edit" would only find records with the word edit in them. A search for "Excel and Word" would only find records with the phrase "Excel and Word" in just this order.
( )	Use parentheses to group words or phrases together.	To select records that contain both the literal phrase "Excel spreadsheet" and the literal word "locked" you can enter the following: AND ("Excel spreadsheet", "locked").
<MANY>	Counts the density of words, stemmed variations, or phrases in a record, and produces a relevance-ranked score for retrieved records. The more occurrences of a word, stem, or phrase proportional to the amount of record text, the higher the score of that record when retrieved. Because the MANY modifier considers density in proportion to record text, a longer record that contains more occurrences of a word may score lower than a shorter record that contains fewer occurrences. NOTE: This modifier cannot be used with AND, OR, or the DATE operators.

Proximity Operators
Operator	Description	Examples
<NEAR>	Finds records containing words that are in the same general area, but may or may not be adjacent.	Excel <NEAR> lock would find all records that contain the word Excel within 3-5 words of lock.
<NEAR/N>	This operator allows you to search for words within a specified distance from each other. The N variable can be any integer between 1 and 1,024.	Excel <NEAR/10> lock, would locate all records with these two words within 10 words of each other.
<PHRASE>	Finds records containing phrases or words that are adjacent to each other.	If you are looking for a phrase "Excel locking up" your search could look like this: <PHRASE> Excel locking up and this would retreive all records with these three words in a row.
<SENTENCE> and <PARAGRAPH>	These operators will find records in which the words specified are in the same sentence or paragraph.
<ORDER>	Allows you to search for records that contain the words in the same order they appear in the query.	Microsoft <ORDER> Excel would find records with Microsoft Excel not Excel Microsoft.

Syntax Operators
Operator	Description	Examples
<SOUNDEX>	Expands the search to include the word you enter and one or more words that "sound like," or whose letter pattern is similar to the word specified. This is helpful when you are not certain of the exact spelling of a word.
<STEM>	Expands your search to include the word you enter and all its variations.
<THESAURUS>	Finds records with synonyms of the word you specify.	<THESAURUS> altitude retrieves records that include "height," "elevation," and "altitude."