Searching help content in the product help system

The help search is a full-text search that supports exact phrases, word stems (in English and German), wildcard characters, and Boolean operators. You can control whether search results are highlighted and how they are displayed in the Search Results list.

About this task

Note: Search strings are not case-sensitive. The search results are the same for open, Open, OPEN, and OpEn.

Procedure

  1. In the Search field, enter a term and click Go.
    Search field

    The Search Results tab opens and displays the results for the search, which are sorted by relevance.

  2. Optional: In the Search Results tab, you can customize the display of your results:
    • To hide or show the result descriptions, click the Show result descriptions Show Result Descriptions icon.
    • To sort the results by their content type instead of relevance, click the Group search result Show Result Categories icon. Sorting options vary by product.
  3. Click a search result to open the corresponding topic. The help topic opens and the search terms you entered are highlighted. To add or remove term highlighting, click the Highlight search terms Highlight Search Terms icon.
  4. To return to the Contents view, click the Table of Contents tab Contents tab.

What to do next

If your initial search produces too many or too few hits to find what you are looking for, refine your search by using these techniques:
  • If you are confident that the information for which you are searching is in a particular branch of the navigation tree, select the parent topic for the section, click Search Topics Search topics and select Search this topic and all subtopics.
  • Use a longer, more specific phrase to make more relevant topics rank higher in the results list.
  • Use a wildcard character:
    • Asterisk (*): For multiple unknown or variable characters in the term. For example, the search term par* returns partly, participate, partial, and other words that begin with par.
    • Question mark (?): For a single unknown, variable character, or zero character in the term. For example, the search term par? returns part and park, but not partial or partly.
  • Enclose a phrase in quotation marks ("") to find only those topics that contain that exact phrase. The case does not affect the search results even when the phrase is enclosed in quotation marks.

    English and German only: When you enclose a term in quotation marks, word-stem results are not included. For example, without quotation marks, the search term challenge includes results for challenging and challenged.

  • Use a Boolean operator:
    • AND: Narrows the search to include topics that contain both terms. For example, if you enterdatabase AND "log file", the search results include topics that contain both the term database and the phrase log file.
    • OR: Widens the search to include topics that contain either one term or another. For example, if you enter database OR "log file" , the search results include topics that contain either database or log file.
    • NOT: Searches for topics that do not contain a term or phrase. For example, if you enter database NOT "log file", the search results include topics that contain database, but do not contain log file.
    • OR...NOT: Searches for topics that contain one of two terms, but do not contain another term. For example, if you enter database OR "data base" NOT "log file", the search results include topics that contain either database or data base, but do not contain log file.
  • If your help system applies to multiple product versions, you can search for a fix pack version in the format V<version> to see a list of changes that apply to that fix pack. Example: V1.0.0.1

Narrowing searches to a subset of topics in the product help system

If you consistently use a particular section of the help, you can search that subset of help topics rather than the entire help system. You might also search a subset of topics if you are confident that the information you need is in a particular section.

About this task

By default, when you search in the product help, all the topics in the contents view are searched.

Procedure

  • To search a collection of topics:
    Restriction: In some browsers, such as Konqueror and Safari, the search scope function is not supported so the search scope cannot be saved.
    1. By the Search field, click Scope.
      Search scope link
    2. Select Search only the following topics and click New.
    3. In the List name field, enter a name for your search scope. Example: Installing content
    4. In the Topics section, select the help content to include in your search. To select subtopics, expand the branches. Example: Installing
    5. Click OK. Your new search list is displayed in the Search only the following topics list. Click OK to save this search scope. The name of your search scope shows next to the Scope link.
      Next to the Scope link, the text Installing content displays
    6. In Search field, enter your search term and click Go. The topics that you selected in the search scope are searched for the term you entered.
  • To search a topic and its subtopics:
    1. In the Table of Contents tab Contents Contents view, select a topic.
    2. Click the Search topics Search topics icon, and then select Search selected topic and all subtopics.
    3. In the Search Expression field, enter a search term and click OK. The Search Results tab opens and shows the results of your search.
  • To search a single topic:
    1. In the Table of Contents tab Contents Contents view, select a topic.
    2. Click the Search topics Search topics icon, and then select Search selected topic.
    3. In the Search Expression field, enter a search term and click OK. The Search Results tab opens and shows the results of your search.
Related concepts:
Overview of the product help system
Features in the product help system
Related tasks:
Printing topics and creating PDFs in the product help system
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