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Search Help

The best way to find information on TechPlanet is to navigate through the relevant product site (see the Side Menu help). If you can’t find what you are looking for, using Search may help you locate the information.

Quick tips | Search string | Search scope | Search file types | Using Boolean logic

Quick tips Expand/collapse all tips

When you know the file name More...

To search for a specific file, you need to choose Exact phrase and type the following into the text field: #filename filename.extension (where filename is the actual file name, and extension is the actual extension, for example, .pdf). Note: you cannot search for executables (*.exe) this way.

Example:

When you know the author name or document title More...

To search by author, select Exact phrase and type @docauthor John Smith in the text area. The Search engine returns links where John Smith is the author.

To search by document title, select Exact phrase and type @doctitle User Guide in the text area. The Search engine returns links with “User Guide” in the title.

Searching using Exact phrase More...

When you select Exact phrase from the Search drop-down menu and build a Boolean logic string, you will get the best results from your search. Note: when you select Exact phrase, it is not necessary to put quotation marks around the text that you type.

Example:

In this example, your string is not changed by the search, and remains trendsetter spectrum. Search will generate a link to any document that contains the exact phrase “trendsetter spectrum”. Search results will not include links to documents that only contain one of the two words, or documents that contain both words, but not in that exact placement.

Adding other criteria to a search More...

You can add other criteria to a search. For example, an Exact phrase search for Prinergy AND @doctitle User Guide will return documents with “User Guide” in the title and “Prinergy” in the content or title. See Using Boolean Logic for more information.

Search string

You will get the best search results when you select Exact phrase and use a Boolean logic search string.

When you select All of the words, Search replaces all spaces in your query with the Boolean operator "AND". Note: Do not use quotation marks or Boolean logic when you perform a search using the All of the Words option, or you may get irrelevant results.

When you select Any of the words, Search replaces all spaces in your query with the Boolean operator "OR". Note: Do not use quotation marks or Boolean logic when you perform a search using the Any of the Words option, or you may get irrelevant results.

Search scope

We recommend that you select the Entire TechPlanet site option in the Search scope area. When you restrict a search by category, you may get poor results due to current file structure and content tagging limitations. If you choose to restrict your search by product, you can select multiple product families by pressing and holding the Ctrl key, then clicking on additional product family entries.

Search File types

Restrict your search by file type (.htm, .pdf, .doc, .xls, or .txt) only if you are sure of the file type. If you choose an incorrect file type, you will not find the content you are looking for.

Using Boolean logic

You can improve your search results by using the following Boolean logic terms in your Exact phrase search:

AND—Use AND to view pages that contain at least one occurrence of each search word.
OR—Use OR to view pages that contain at least one occurrence of one search word but not necessarily all words. OR is also useful when building a more complex Boolean string when you want to include similar terms in your search. For example, if you are searching for a guideline you may also want to search for a procedure or checklist (see the example below).
AND NOT—Use AND NOT to view pages that contain the search word (or words) that precedes AND NOT but not the word that follows it. Use AND NOT as the last operator in a search string.
NEAR—Use NEAR to indicate that two or more items must be found within a document to generate a match, and they must appear closely together (within about 50 words). NEAR is a more restrictive form of AND.

Tips:

Boolean operators should be in upper case.
Enclose phrases (that is, words that should appear together) with quotation marks “ ”.
Use brackets ( ) to enclose additional conditions for a more refined search.
You can use the asterisk (*) as a wild card.
Use the Exact phrase option, search the entire TechPlanet site, and search all file types.

Example:

To search for a pre-site checklist for a Prinergy 2.0 install, use the following Boolean statement:

Prinergy 2.0 AND install AND pre-site AND (guide OR checklist OR procedure)

This search produces a return of 39 results. You can narrow this further if you know that you do not want any Product Support Update documents:

Prinergy 2.0 AND install AND pre-site AND (guide OR checklist OR procedure) AND NOT "product support update"

This search produces 23 results.

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