Search Tips

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Search Tips

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Search Tips

Multiple consecutive words are treated as a phrase; they must appear in the same order within a matching document.
Searches are case-insensitive, so you can type your search in uppercase or lowercase.
Words like a, an, and, as, the, etc. are ignored during a search.
Punctuation marks such as the period (.), colon (:), semicolon (;), and comma (,) are ignored during a search.
To use specially treated characters such as &, |, ^, #, @, $, (, ), in a search, enclose your search in quotation marks (“).
To search for a word or phrase containing quotation marks, enclose the entire phrase in quotation marks and then double the quotation marks around the word or words you want to surround with quotes. For example, “World-Wide Web or ““Web””” searches for World-Wide Web or “Web”.
You can use Boolean Operators (AND, OR, and NOT) and the Proximity Operator (NEAR) to specify additional search information.
The Wildcard Character (*) can match words with a given prefix. The query esc* matches the terms “ESC,” “escape,” and so on.

Boolean and Proximity Operators

Boolean and proximity operators can create a more precise query.

To Search For	Example	Results
Both terms in the same page	`access and basic` —Or— `access & basic`	Pages with both the words “access” and “basic”
Either term in a page	`cgi or isapi`—Or— `cgi \| isapi`	Pages with the words “cgi” or “isapi”
The first term without the second term	`access and not basic`—Or— `access & ! basic`	Pages with the word “access” but not “basic”
Both terms in the same page, close together	`excel near project`—Or— `excel ~ project`	Pages with the word “excel” near the word “project”

Wildcards

Wildcard operators help you find pages containing words similar to a given word.

To Search For	Example	Results
Words with the same prefix	`comput*`	Pages with words that have the prefix “comput,” such as “computer,” “computing,” and so on
Words based on the same stem word	`fly**`	Pages with words based on the same stem as “fly,” such as “flying,” “flown,” “flew,” and so on