How to make File/Search work?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jonathan Sachs
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J

Jonathan Sachs

I'm having trouble making the File/Search command work. Currently it does
not find any files, even one that I know are matches.

The computer is running Windows XP and Word 2002.

I'm searching for files whose contents include a single word, "Mozart."
"Results should be" is defaulted to "Office files." I initially tried
searching a single directory which is known to contain matching files. When
that didn't work I tried searching the entire disk (an earlier thread in
this newsgroup suggested that would work), but I still got no matches. The
command came back with "No matches" instantly, which suggests to me that it
is not really searching at all.

Yes, I clicked the ballot box twice to make it display as a stack of boxes
with the top one checked. (I assume that this means "check this directory
and all subdirectories.")
 
Are you certain you don't have any other search options selected? Such as files of a specific type? Or files created in a certain time frame? Match case
Look at all of the different search opions available and make sure one of those isn't messing up the search
Also, I think this is more appropriately a Windows question, not Word

tj
 
I had a similar experience recently and realized that I had typed the search
text in the wrong box: If I type it into the "search text" on the Basic tab,
it seems to look for maybe a file with that name? If I enter it on the
Advanced tab as "Text or property includes <search text>," then the search
returns the desired results.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

tjtjjtjt said:
Are you certain you don't have any other search options selected? Such as
Click to expand...
files of a specific type? Or files created in a certain time frame? Match
case?
Look at all of the different search opions available and make sure one of
Click to expand...
those isn't messing up the search.
 
Suzanne S. Barnhill said:
I had a similar experience recently and realized that I had typed the search
text in the wrong box: If I type it into the "search text" on the Basic tab,
it seems to look for maybe a file with that name? If I enter it on the
Advanced tab as "Text or property includes <search text>," then the search
returns the desired results.
Click to expand...

Here's what I've got (following Suzanne's suggestion):

Property: Text or property
Condition: Includes
The box below the Add/Remove/Remove All buttons contains one line, "Text or
property includes Mozart".
Search in: selected locations (two directories which contain matches are
selected, both with the "...and subdirectories" option, although it
shouldn't be necessary).
Results should be: Selected file types, Office files

Still nothing. I tried the same search with the whole drive (and
subdirectories) selected. Again, it came back with nothing almost instantly,
suggesting that it isn't really trying.
 
That does sound very discouraging. FWIW, that's why most of us use Search in
Windows Explorer instead of Word.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
Suzanne S. Barnhill said:
That does sound very discouraging. FWIW, that's why most of us use Search in
Windows Explorer instead of Word.
Click to expand...

I didn't consider trying that, because in the past I have found that it was
just about useless for Word files (as distinguished from ASCII files). I
assume that it usually found an EOD character somewhere in the part of the
document file that precedes the text, and said, "That's all, folks."

I tried again (probably the first time I have tried it since Windows NT),
and it seems to be doing much better. Can you say whether it's truly
reliable for this application, or just better than nothing?
 
I've found that it always finds what I'm looking for.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
Jonathan said:
*I'm having trouble making the File/Search command work. Currently it
does
not find any files, even one that I know are matches.

The computer is running Windows XP and Word 2002.

I'm searching for files whose contents include a single word,
"Mozart."
"Results should be" is defaulted to "Office files." I initially
tried
searching a single directory which is known to contain matching
files. When
that didn't work I tried searching the entire disk (an earlier thread
in
this newsgroup suggested that would work), but I still got no
matches. The
command came back with "No matches" instantly, which suggests to me
that it
is not really searching at all.

Yes, I clicked the ballot box twice to make it display as a stack of
boxes
with the top one checked. (I assume that this means "check this
directory
and all subdirectories.") *
Click to expand...


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