Using Boolean Logic to Enhance Search Results

If you've used any of the popular web-based search engines, you're likely to be quite familiar with using Boolean logic already. If not, read on and we'll take a crash course.

Boolean searching involves the use of three operators:

• And
• Or
• Not

Let's look at each one of these a bit closer.

And

Use the And operator to narrow your search. When And is used in the search criteria, only objects with all terms entered are returned. For example, if you enter the search criteria as Author and Manage and Publish, only objects containing all of these words are returned.

You can also use the plus (+) symbol in place of And

The more terms that are added to the search criteria, the more restrictive the search becomes, so fewer results will be found.

Note: The default search behaviour assumes that when you enter a series of words, you are only interested in Objects that contain all the words you have specified. So, using the previous example, you can also enter the search criteria as Author Manage Publish. The And operator is used by default, so you generally don't need to use it.

Or

Use the Or operator to find Objects that contain certain words but not necessarily all the words in your criteria. When Or is used in the search criteria, objects with any of the terms entered are returned. For example, if you enter the search criteria as Graphic or Image or Picture, objects containing any of these words are returned.

You can also use the pipe (|) symbol in place of Or

Using Or widens your search. The more terms that are added to the search criteria, the less restrictive the search becomes, so the number of results that are found will be higher.

Not

Use the Not operator to find objects that do not contain certain words. When Not is used in the search criteria, only objects without the term you have specified are returned. For example, if you enter the search criteria as Author not Writer not Editor, only objects containing "Author" are returned. Those that also contain "Writer" and/or "Editor" are excluded from the results.

You can also use the minus (-) symbol in place of Not

Exact Phrase Matching

To find an exact phrase in an Object, enclose your search criteria with quotation marks. For example, if you enter the search criteria as "Author Manage Publish", only objects that contain the exact phrase "Author Manage Publish" are returned.

Tip: You can combine exact phrase matching with the And, Or and Not operators. For example, the search criteria "Author Manage Publish" and "Document solutions", will only return objects that contain both the phrase "Author Manage Publish" and the phrase "Document solutions".