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Document Search Criteria

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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, which are groups of keywords.

Example:
To search for documents that contain the entire phrase "annual budget," type

"annual budget"

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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 in 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," type

budget AND analysis

You can also type

+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," or "analysis," or both, type

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," type

budget - "fiscal year"

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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:

Example:
To search for the keywords "test" or "text" type

te?t

To search for the keywords "test," "tests," or "tester," type

test

Tip: You cannot use a wildcard character as the first character in your search criteria.

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