Searching for documents

 

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Search Tips   |   Advanced Search

 

Search for a document in a folder or library.

Document Manager provides users the ability to search for documents only within the working library, or across IBM® WebSphere® Portal.

The Document Manager search function looks through folders for documents, but the search results will only include documents, not folders. Users can search Document Manager for documents based on the document content, author, or other document attributes. The basic search searches for documents only in the contents of the current folder using the default settings of that folder. To change the scope of the search, users can perform an advanced search.

Follow these steps to perform a basic Document Manager search:

  1. From the folder that you want to search in, type your keywords in the Search in current folder for field.

  2. Click the search icon to begin the basic search. The search results display at the bottom of the screen.

  3. Use the arrow buttons to navigate the search results pages.

When typing the keywords for your search, be sure to use a wildcard with partial strings. For example, a search for "HTML" and "HTM*" returns a file with the word "HTML" in the document. The same search with partial strings and no wildcard, such as "HTM", does not return that document.

Searches use:

  • Free text (users enter text or a phrase without any modifiers)

  • Internet-style plus ( +) and minus ( - ) symbols (for example, +document +conversion +services -remote returns items that include the words "document conversion services" but excludes items that include the word "remote")

  • Internet-style double quotes ( " ) for phrases (such as "content management")

  • Trailing wild cards (Adam* brings search results of Adam, Adams, Adamson, for example)

 

Viewing search results

By default, the maximum number of search results displayed is 200. When more than 200 items are returned by the search, a message is shown at the bottom of the results list to indicate that only the first 200 items were retrieved. If the item you are trying to find is not included in the results, try modifying your search criteria and performing the search again, or using the sort function to reorganize the results list.

We can increase the maximum number of search results that can be displayed in a single results list, but this may adversely affect server performance and result in longer wait times while performing searches.

 

Performing an advanced Document Manager search

  1. Click Advanced Search.

  2. Type your keywords in the Search field.

  3. Select All folders to search all the folders in the working document library, or select Current folder and subfolders to only search for documents contained in the current folder.

  4. Select one of the following options from Include in search:

    Document content and properties Search the full text of the documents, as well as the document properties.
    Document title Search document titles.
    Author Search document authors. We can click Add to launch the People Picker to quickly perform a directory search for names of authors.
    Description Search document descriptions.

  5. Select the document language from the Language of search string drop-down list to narrow your search to a certain document language. The language parameter is for informational purposes and searches and does not affect the content of your document.

  6. Click Search to begin the advanced search. The search results display at the bottom of the screen.

  7. Use the arrow buttons to navigate the search results pages.