When creating document search criteria, you can use a combination of keywords, operators, and wildcard characters to define your query. Try to be as specific as possible when coming up with search criteria.
Use the following guidelines and examples to create effective document search criteria.
Keywords
Keywords are terms and phrases, including a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters on which you can base your search.
Example: To search for documents that contain the keyword "budget", type budget.
You can also use quotation marks when defining keywords. Quotation marks enable you to create phrases; the application will search for the entire phrase.
Example: To search for documents that contain the entire phrase "annual budget", type "annual budget" (with the quotation marks).
Operators
Operators enable you to establish associations, or relationships, between keywords and phrases. Logical operators, such as Boolean operators (AND, OR, required operator +, and prohibit operator -), place conditions on the search criteria and identify which keywords you want to include or exclude from your search.
Note: Type Boolean operators in capital letters.
The AND operator returns all documents that contain both keywords specified on each side of the operator.
The required operator (+) returns all documents that contain the keyword listed after the operator.
Example: To search for documents containing both the keywords, "budget", and "analysis", enter budget AND analysis in the search bar. Or, you could enter +budget+analysis.
The OR operator returns all documents that contain either or both of the keywords specified on each side of the operator.
Example: To search for documents containing the keyword "budget", "analysis", or both, enter budget OR analysis.
The prohibited operator (-) excludes the keyword listed after the operator from appearing in the search results.
Example: To search for documents that contain the keyword "budget", but not the phrase "fiscal year", enter budget-"fiscal year".
Wildcard Characters
Wildcard characters are special characters you can use to represent unknown characters in your search. You can use one of the following two wildcard characters in your search:
- the question mark (?) represents a single alphanumeric character
- the asterisk (*) represents a string of characters and is entered by default in the search string
Example: To search for the keywords "test" or "text" enter te?t. To search for the keywords "test," "tests," or "tester," type test.
Note: You cannot use a wildcard character as the first character in your search criteria.