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How to Search the

CD-ROM
CONTENTS
Search Toolbar ................................... 2 Word Stemming ................................. 8
How to run a search .......................... 3 Match Case ...................................... . 9
Searching Techniques....................... 5 Boolean Searching (And, Or, or Not) 10
Searching with wildcard characters 7 Search Tips ....................................... 11
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Search Toolbar
The Search tool searches ALL text on the CD-ROM for single words,
phrases, parts of words, or combinations of words. See the Readme.txt
file on the CD if you do not see this Search icon on the toolbar.
The Search Results tool displays the results of your cross-
document search. The relevancy of a document is graphically
shown by the number of shaded quadrants in a circle.

The Previous Highlight button displays the previous occurrence of a

search term found by the Search command.
The Next Highlight button displays the next occurrence of a search term
found by the Search command. Use this button to navigate through
search results an occurrence at a time. This function automatically jumps
to the next document containing the search term.

The Find tool ONLY searches for part of a word, a complete word,
or multiple words in the front-most open document showing. The
Search tool (see above) is recommended for all searching across
documents on the CD-ROM.
Caution: This is a SLOW search if the document is more than 100
pages.
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How to Run a Search

1. Click on the Search tool button to bring up the Adobe Acrobat Search
box. Type reservoir and click on the Search button.

Adobe Acrobat Search

Find Results Containing Text
Search
reservoir
Clear

IndexesÉ

Options
■ Word Stemming ■ Thesaurus ■ Match Case
■ Sounds Like ■ Proximity

2. The Search Results box will appear with a list of document titles containing
the word ÒreservoirÓ. The number of shaded quadrants in a circle graphically
depicts the number of results in each document.
Search Results
Title

Chapter 3 - Disturbance Affecting S

Chapter 4 - Getting Organized and
Chapter 5 - Developing Goals, Obje

View InfoÉ
How to Run a Search Page 4

2. Click on a document and then click on the View Button to display its con-
tent. Notice that the word reservoir is highlighted everywhere it appears.
3. Click on the Search Next button , go to the next occurrence of reser-
voir in the file. The Search Results button re-displays the search
results box.
4. Click on the Search Box icon and click on the Clear button to clear the
search terms. Type Òreservoir sedimentationÓ . The quotes are required
because this is a phrase. Click on the Search button to find documents
containing this phrase.
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Searching Techniques
The search tool must be used for all searching across documents.
Query Finds documents that contain
reservoir The word ÒreservoirÓ
reservoir sedimentation The phrase Òreservoir sedimentationÓ.
disturbance AND dams [Proximity selected]
The terms Òdisturbance Ò and ÒdamsÓ are
either one to three pages apart. Note: If you
deselect the proximity option, the number of
documents increases since the words no
longer have to be near each other.
"111" Any number, e.g., "111Ó, "11.11"

Òhydrologic and hydraulicÓThe phrase Òhydrologic and hydraulicÓ

(double-quotes required for phrases that
contain search operators)
reservoir AND sediments Both Òreservoir Ó and ÒsedimentsÓ anywhere
in a document
reservoir OR sediments Either Òreservoir Ó or ÒsedimentsÓ
anywhere in a document
Search Techniques Page 6

Query Finds documents that contain

fish AND NOT farming Òfish Ó but not ÒfarmingÓ anywhere in a document
(soybean farming) AND The phrase Òsoybean farmingÓ and
(growing OR production) either Ògrowing Ó or ÒproductionÓ
Searching for a single term
To find occurrences of a single term, enter the term in the Search text box and
click Search. A search term can be a word, a word with wildcard characters, or
any combination of letters, numbers, and symbols. Put search terms containing
special characters such as hyphens or commas in quotation marks, for ex-
ample: "1.102".
You can use the Match Case, Word Stemming, and Sounds Like options when
searching for a single term.
Searching for a phrase (See Proximity option)
To search for a phrase, type the phrase in the Find text box and click Search.
For example,
reservoir sedimentation
finds all occurrences of Òreservoir sedimentation,Ó ÒReservoir sedimentation,Ó
ÒReservoir Sedimentation,Ó as well as all other combinations of upper- and
lowercase letters for the phrase Òreservoir sedimentation.Ó Put search
Search Techniques Page 7

terms containing special characters such as hyphens or commas in quotation

marks,
You can use a phrase as part of a Boolean expression. For example, the
phrase,
pollution and reservoir sedimentation,
finds all documents that contain both the word pollution and the phrase reser-
voir sedimentation. Note with the proximity option selected, the word, pollution
, will be within 3 or 4 pages of the other phrase.
If the phrase you want to find contains a Boolean operator, you must enclose
the phrase in double quotes. For example,
Òcats and dogsÓ or Òrain or shineÓ
Searching with wildcard characters
You can use wildcard characters to find all the words that contain a word frag-
ment or all the words and terms that match an arbitrary character pattern. The
wildcard characters are
* the asterisk, which matches zero, one, or more characters
? the question mark, which matches any one character
Search Techniques Page 8

Wildcard examples
geo* matches words such as geode, geodesic, Geoffrey, geography,
geometry, George, and geothermal
*nym matches words such as antonym, homonym, and synonym
?ight matches words such as fight, light, might, right, and sight
555-???? matches all seven-digit phone numbers with the 555 prefix
pr?m* matches words such as premature, premeditate, prim primate,
promise, and promontory
You can use wildcard characters in a term that is part of a Boolean expression.
Note: You cannot use wildcard characters to represent separator characters
such as the hyphen [-] and the slash [/]. When an index is created, it uses
separator characters to recognize where words begin and end, and does not
place them in the index. To find both Òbegin/endÓ and Òbegin-end,Ó for example,
you cannot search for Òbegin?end.Ó Searching for Òbegin?endÓ finds neither
Òbegin/endÓ or Òbegin-end.Ó To find both, you must search for the phrase Òbegin
end,Ó or for both Òbegin/endÓ and Òbegin-end.Ó
Word Stemming search option
Word stemming expands the search to find words that share word stems with
the search terms you enter in the Find box. For example, with Word
Search Techniques Page 9

Stemming selected, searching for ÒbuildingÓ finds ÒbuildÓ and ÒbuildsÓ as well a
Òbuilding.Ó
Note: The Word Stemming option may not find words that end with Òer.ÓUse
the "*" for root searching to include all possible word endings.
The Word Stemming feature does not apply to terms that contain wildcard
characters. It will only find plurals for complete words. For example: a search
on "conflict" with word stemming will find "conflict" and "conflicts", but will not
find "conflicting".
Match Case search option
Match Case limits the results of the search to find only those documents that
contain words with the same capitalization as the search term or terms you
enter in the Find box. With Match Case selected, for example, searching for
ÒReservoirÓ finds all occurrences of ÒReservoir,Ó but not occurrences of Òreser-
voir.Ó
You can use the Match Case option with phrase searches and the Match Case
option applies to any terms you use with a Boolean expression.
You can also use the Match Case option with terms that contain wildcard char-
acters. Characters matched by wildcard characters, however, can be either
upper- or lowercase.
You cannot use the Match Case option with the Word Stemming, The-
saurus, or Sounds Like options. When any of these options are selected,
the Match Case option is ignored.
Search Techniques Page 10

Searching with AND, OR, and NOT (Boolean expressions)

You can use AND, OR, and NOT operators to build a Boolean expression that
specifies combinations of words that a document must have to be returned by
a search.
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Search tips
When you begin using the Search command, you might encounter the following
two problems:
¥ A search finds too many items. A search for a single word can, for example,
return hundreds of resultsÑfar too many to open and view.
¥ A search finds too few, or no results.
This topic gives advice for solving both of these problems.
Handling a search that finds too many results
When a search returns too many results, you can use the following techniques
to restrict or refine the results of the search.
¥ When you use AND to search for records containing two or more words, you
can use the Proximity search option to change the way found records are
assigned a relevance ranking. With the Proximity option selected, the closer
together the words are in a record, the higher the relevance ranking. The Prox-
imity option also requires that terms in an AND search be within three or four
pages of one another to be found.
¥ Use the Match Case search option to limit searches to documents that con-
tain the words or phrases that are capitalized exactly like the search word or
phrase you enter.
Search Tips Page 12

Locating hard-to-find information

If a search returns too few records, first make sure that the search is set up
correctly. Also, make sure that you donÕt have search options selected or field
values entered from a previous search.
If a search is set up correctly and too few items are returned from the search,
use the following techniques to increase the number of found documents:
¥ Use the Word Stemming search option to find words that share a stem with a
search word. Searching for programming, for example, also finds program and
programs, but not programmer. (See Word Stemming search option for de-
tails.)
¥ Use OR to search for alternative spellings of the same word or to search for
two or more words that are used to describe the information for which you are
searching. When looking for information about political revolutions, for ex-
ample, you might search for revolution or coup or uprising. See Searching with
AND, OR, and NOT (Boolean expressions) for more information about OR
searches.
Search Tips Page 13

Using search options

The search options expand and restrict the results of searches with single
terms, phrases, and Boolean expressions. The search options do not apply to
Document Info field values. To add the search options to the Acrobat Search
window, choose Preferences > Search from the Edit menu and select Show
Options.
¥ Word Stemming finds words that share a stem with the search term.
¥ Thesaurus finds words that have the same meaning as the search term.
¥ Match Case finds only words that are capitalized exactly like the search term.
¥ Proximity changes AND searches so that words must be within three or four
pages of one another.
Proximity search option
Proximity changes the way AND searches work. With Proximity selected,
words in an AND search must be within three or four pages of each other to be
found. Without the Proximity option, two words may appear anywhere in a
document and still be found by an AND search.
Also, the closer the words are in the document, the higher the relevance rank-
ing of the document in which they appear.