Summary

This topic explains the search methods that you can use on the Search tab.

The check boxes at the bottom of the page will affect your search.

Using full-text searches

Enter a word or phrase in the Search tab to conduct a full-text search of all topics for occurrences of the word or phrase.

Basic rules for full-text searches

The basic rules for formulating queries are:

• Searches are not case-sensitive, so you can type your search in uppercase or lower case characters.
• You may search for any combination of letters (a-z) and numbers (0-9)
• Punctuation marks such as the period, colon, semicolon, comma, and hyphen are ignored during a search.
• Group the elements of your search using double quotes or parentheses to set apart each element. You cannot search for quotation marks.

Searching for file names with an extension

If you are searching for a file name with an extension, then you should group the entire string in double quotes, ("file name.ext"). Otherwise, the period will break the file name into two separate terms. The default operation between terms is AND, so you will create the logical equivalent to "file name AND ext."

Wildcard Expressions

You can search for words or phrases using wildcard expressions. Wildcard expressions allow you to search for one or more characters using a question mark or asterisk.

Boolean Operators

The AND, OR, NEAR, and NOT operators enable you to precisely define your search by creating a relationship between search terms. If no operator is specified, AND is used. For example, the query "Payroll Annual Leave" is equivalent to "Payroll AND Annual AND Leave."

Nested Expressions

Nested expressions allow you to create complex searches for information.  For example, "hr AND ((management OR benefit) NEAR contract)" finds topics containing the word "hr" along with the words "contract" and "management" close together, or "hr" along with the words "contract" and "benefit" close together.

Using Nested Expressions

The basic rules for searching Help topics using nested expressions are:

• Use parentheses to nest expressions within a query.  The expressions in parentheses are evaluated before the rest of the query.
• If a query does not contain a nested expression, it is evaluated from left to right.

  For example, "contract NOT benefit OR management" finds topics containing the word "contract" without the word "benefit" or topics containing the word "management".  On the other hand, "contract NOT (benefit OR management)" finds topics containing the word "contract" without either of the words "benefit" or "management".

• Nested expressions cannot be more than five levels deep.