TIP 13: Advanced Search Techniques
You can fine-tune a search using the Advanced Search options, or search for content such as keywords or metadata. Click the Use Advanced Search Options link at the bottom of the basic Search pane (shown earlier in Figure 11a) to display additional searching parameters. To search the text in the document, you can choose from matching the exact phrase, or some of the words, or you can use a Boolean query. Fewer search options are available if you are searching one document than if you are searching multiple documents. Figure 13 shows the Search pane for a search done on a folder, and the search is based on keywords rather than text in the document. You can use up to three additional search parameters.
Figure 13. Use Advanced Search features for pinpointing precise results or searching for content other than text.
Use the pull-down menus below the "Use these additional criteria" label. Click the left pull-down menu to display a list of options, as shown in the figure. Select the search option you desire, and then click the right pull-down arrow and select a modifier. Finally, type the search term in the field, such as the keyword you wish to search for. A green checkmark displays in the check box to the left of the criteria's fields. Click the Search button to search the document properties for the files in the selected folder. Acrobat returns results that contain all additional search criteria only. You can remove criteria by clicking the green checkmark to deselect it.
Saving Searching Time Using Preferences
You can spend a lot of time sifting through documents, and in some cases, such as building an annual report, you may have to repeat searches several times. Save yourself time and headaches by setting Search Preferences: If your documents contain diacritics or accents, be sure to check the Ignore Diacritics and Accents option. That way if your work includes both premiere and premi\'e8re, for example, you can find both terms. Select the Always use advanced search option if you are likely to do only complex searches to save a couple of mouse clicks expanding the options in the Search pane. When searching enormous collections, set the preference for the Maximum number of returned documents. The default is 100; set it higher if necessary, but remember that searching so many documents will require more processing time. If you use Proximity searching a lot, modify the preference. The range of words for Proximity searches is 900; tinker with the value according to the contents of your documents. Proximity searching is an advanced search technique used with multiple documents or indexes, and needs the Match Exact word or phrase option selected from the Return results containing pull-down arrow on the Advanced Search pane. Type two or more words to search for in the documents. Any occurrence of the search terms within 900 words of each other are returned. Use the Fast Find preference to cache the returns from your searches. You can specify the size of the cache, which defaults at 20 MB. Be sure to clear the cache when you have finished a big project to save processing time.
|
|