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The Search tab provides a way to search for words or phrases in help. Type in the keyword(s) to find, and a list of topics that contain the keyword(s) will display. Click on any of the topics listed to display a topic to review.
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Click on the Search tab in the left-hand help pane.
Enter the word or phrase to find in the Type in the keyword to find field, and click on the List Topics button.
A list of the topics containing the keyword(s) will display in the Select Topic to Display field. Display a topic in the right-hand help pane by double-clicking on the topic name, or highlighting the topic name, and then clicking on the Display button.
If you find that you are not able to search by a word or phrase (Topics that include the word you entered show up, it is not search the body of each Topic), you need to adjust Internet Explorer. To adjust Internet Explorer settings, click Tools > Internet Options ... > Advanced Tab. Scroll to the Security section and place a check mark in the check box labeled: "Allow active content to run in files on My Computer" and "Allow active content from CDs to run on My Computer:
If you do this, the Search button will work properly. If you do not do this, the Search button will work like the Index.
Searches are not case-sensitive, so search words can be entered in uppercase or lowercase characters.
Any combination of letters (a-z) and numbers (0-9) can be included in the search.
Punctuation marks such as the period, colon, semicolon, comma, and hyphen are ignored during a search.
To search for an exact phrase, group the words in "double quotes", or (parentheses). Multiple phrases can be searched for at the same time.
Wildcards can be used to search for words or phrases. Use wildcards to search for one or more characters using a question mark or asterisk. The table below describes the results of these different kinds of searches.
Type of Search |
Search Word/Phrase |
Search Results |
A single word |
invoice |
All topics that contain the word "invoice", and all variations of the word, such as "invoices", "invoiced", and "invoicing". |
A phrase (multiple words in quotations) |
"campaign code" |
Topics that contain the phrase "campaign code" and all variations of the phrase such as "campaign codes". Only topics where these words appear together are listed. |
Multiple words (not in quotations) |
campaign code |
Topics that contain the word "campaign" and the word "code". This list would include topics that have the phrase "campaign code", as well as any topics that have the word "campaign" and the word "code" somewhere in the topic. When more than one word is entered without quotation marks, topics that contain all of those words will display. (This is the same as using the boolean search term "AND".) |
Wildcard expressions |
cam* p?st
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Topics that contain the terms "campaign", "camera", "came", and so on. The system searches for any words that have the letters c-a-m followed by any other characters. The asterisk can also be used to search at the beginning or the middle of the word. Topics that contain the terms "post", "past", "pest", and so on. The question mark differs from the asterisk in that only one character can be inserted for the question mark. For example, if the same search is done with an asterisk instead of a question mark (p*st), it would find the same words as the question mark, but it might also find the words "priest" and "prettiest". |
Boolean operators are words to use to narrow down a search, such as AND, OR, and NOT. The following table shows how to use each of these operators. If no operator is specified, AND is used.
Type of Search |
Search Word/Phrase |
Search Results |
Both terms in the same topic |
campaign AND code |
Topics containing both the words "campaign" and "code". |
Either term in a topic |
campaign OR code |
Topics containing either the word "campaign" or the word "code", or both. |
The first term without the second term |
campaign NOT code |
Topics containing the word "campaign", but not the word "code". |
Note: The |, &, and ! characters don't work as boolean operators (OR, AND, and NOT) must be used.
Nested expressions (combinations of boolean operators contained in parentheses) can be used to create complex searches for information. The basic rules for searching help topics using nested expressions are as follows:
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: "campaign NOT code OR report" finds topics containing the word "campaign" without the word "code", or topics containing the word "report". On the other hand, "campaign NOT (code OR report)" finds topics containing the word "campaign" without either of the words "code" or "report".
Expressions cannot be nested more than five levels deep.