Set Search Conditions and Options

It's easy to be too specific or too general when searching for information, and in that case, you won't get the results you need. If you're too general, you may get too many documents returned in your view, making it difficult to sift through. Using search conditions and options will refine your search.

Use Options

There are three options to chose from when searching. The first is Word Variants, which expands the search to include variations from the root word (when searching for "bowl" it also looks for "bowling," "bowls," "bowler," and so on). The second is Fuzzy Search, which allows some room for misspellings (such as when you type "Philadlphia," but it still finds "Philadelphia"). The third is Search within Results, which allows you to filter down within a search you've already run.

To activate these options when the Search bar is open, click More. The Search bar expands (see Figure 7.6). Select Use Word Variants or Fuzzy Search or both. Enter the text you are searching for in the Search box and click Search.

Figure 7.6. When you expand the Search bar, you see not only the Options, but the Condition buttons.

Use Conditions

A condition sets criteria that must be met for a document to "match" the search. You use conditions in combination with your search text.

With the Search bar displayed, click More to expand the Search bar. Click the appropriate condition button to set the criteria for the search.

Table 7.1 lists the buttons and describes what they do. When the condition is set, click Search.

Table 7.1. Search Condition Buttons

Button	Limits Search To	Instructions
Date	Documents that were created or modified in relation to a specific date or time period	Choose Date Created or Date Modified from the Search for Documents Whose field. Select how the date is to be related to the date value (is on, is before, and so on). Specify the number of days or date. Click OK.
Author	Documents that were created or modified (or not) by the specified author(s)	Choose Is any of or Is not any of in the Search For Documents Whose Author field. Then, type in user names (separate names with commas), or click the Author icon and select one or more names from the Names dialog box. Click OK.
Field	Documents that contain a specified value in a particular field	Select the field from the Search For Documents Whose field drop-down list. Choose how you want to evaluate the field from the list (contains, is on, is equal to, and so on). Specify the value for which you are searching. Click OK.
Form	Documents that were created using one of the forms in the list box	From Condition, select By Form. Select the form from the Search for documents which use form list. Click OK.
Multiple Words	Documents that contain or don't contain specified words or phrases	In Search For, choose whether to search for all or any of the words or phrases you list. Then, in the text boxes, enter the words or phrases for which you want to search. Click OK.
Fill out Example Form	The documents that contain specified values in the fields of your example form	Select the form to use as an example and then fill in the fields where your search words would appear. Notes searches all the forms in your database. To limit the search to only documents created with a specific form, add a "by Form" condition, specifying that example form.

The condition appears next to the search text (see Figure 7.7). It's possible to use more than one condition, although you should try searching using one condition first before further refining the search.

Figure 7.7. A condition token appears next to your search text after you define the condition. Double-click the token to open a dialog box and edit the condition. To delete the token, click it once, and then press Delete.