Searching documents with Instant Document Search

Activating search window

To start searching documents, in the Index Manager window, click the Perform Search button.

This will replace the Index Manager window with the program's main window (Instant Document Search) and will make the program available for searching documents.

Entering search query

To enter a query into Instant Document Search:

  1. Just type in a few descriptive words in the Search field.
  2. Select the search zone using the drop-down menu on the right of the Search field.
  3. Specify additional search parameters as necessary.
  4. And hit the ENTER key (or click on the Go button) for a list of relevant documents.
Notes: To add more search zones:
  1. On the Options menu, select Manage Search Zones.
  2. In the Instant Wizard window that appears, enter name for the search zone to be created and click OK to continue or Cancel to terminate the action.
For more information on creating new search zones, see the chapter Creating new search zones.

Since Instant Document Search only returns documents that contain all the words in your query, you may refine or narrow your search by simply adding more words to the search terms that you have already entered. Your new query will return a smaller subset of the pages that Instant Document Search found for your original "too-broad" query.

Choosing keywords

For best results, it's important to choose your keywords wisely. Keep these tips in mind:
  • Try the obvious first. If you are looking for some report, enter "report" rather than "documents".
  • Use words that are likely to appear on in a document with the information you want. "Prospective clients list" gets better results than "local area businesses".
  • The same word can often have more than one meaning. Therefore, searching by a single keyword is not efficient. Try entering two or three keywords or a key-phrase instead.
 Automatic "AND" queries

By default, Instant Document Search only returns pages that include all of your keywords. There is no need to include "and" between keywords. Keep in mind that the order in which the terms are typed will affect the search results. To restrict your search further, simply include more keywords.

Power search

You can increase the accuracy of your searches by using the Power search that fine-tunes your search query.

To launch the Power-search:
  1. Click on the [...] button by the Search field.
  2. In the Power search window that appears, specify the search keywords:
    1. ALL of these keywords - the program will search for documents that contain all of the specified keywords.
    2. ANY of these keywords - the program will search for documents that contain any of the specified keywords.
    3. NONE of these keywords - the program will search for documents that do not contain the specified keywords.
  3. Click OK to continue or Cancel to cancel the action.
Besides keywords, you can provide additional search parameters to further narrow your search - using the Search parameters setting. To specify additional search parameters:
  1. Click on the [...] button by the Parameters field.
  2. In the Search parameters window that appears, specify the parameters:
    1. Enable file name filter - enables filtering search results by name of returned documents and their folders.
    2. File name - search result document name must match specified here.
    3. Folder - search result document folder must match specified here.
    4. Enable file date filter - enables filtering search results by date and time the returned document were created or modified.
    5. Min. date - search result document date and time must be not earlier than specified here.
    6. Max. date - search result document date and time must be not later than specified here.
    7. Enable file size filter - enables filtering search results by size of the returned documents.
    8. Min. size - search result document size must be not smaller than specified here.
    9. Max. size - search result document size must be not greater than specified here.
  3. Click OK to continue or Cancel to cancel the action.
Most of the power-search options can be entered directly into the program's search box or selected from the Power search dialog window.

Phrase searches

Search for complete phrases by enclosing them in quotation marks. Words enclosed in double quotes ("like this") will appear together in all results exactly as you have entered them.

"OR" searches

Instant Document Search supports the logical "OR" operator. To retrieve documents that include either word A or word B, use an uppercase OR between terms. For example, to search for a January or May financial report, just type: "financial report" January OR May.

"-" searches

Sometimes what you are searching for has more than one meaning. You can exclude a word from your search by putting a minus sign ("-") immediately in front of the keyword you want to avoid. (Be sure to include a space before the minus sign!)

For example, to find financial documents that refer to February and do not contain the word "report", type: financial -report.



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