The Search Field
The Finder's Search field appears in the top-right corner of a Finder window's toolbar (Figure 1 ). You can use it to initiate a search based on item name or contents. Simply enter a word or phrase in the field and Mac OS X displays a list of matches.
Figure 1. The Search field appears in the toolbar of a Finder window.
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- A window's toolbar must be displayed to use the Search field. If the toolbar is not displayed, click the toolbar control button (Figure 1 ) to display it.
To find files with the Search field
1. | Click in the Search field of a Finder window to position the blinking insertion point there (Figure 1 ). |
2. | Enter the word or phrase you want to search for (Figure 2 ).Figure 2. When you enter a search word, Mac OS X immediately begins displaying search results.[View full size image] |
Tips
- You can specify a search location by clicking one of the location buttons above the search results in the Searching window (Figure 2 ). I tell you more about search locations on the next page.Remember, the search feature searches by name or contents. If you're not sure of a file's name, search for some text you expect to find in the document. Figure 3 shows an example.
Figure 3. Remember, the search feature searches by contents, too. In this example, I found two other letters by searching for the word
Dear - which appears as part of the text in most letters - rather than letter .[View full size image]