Advanced searching provides additional ways to find information in the Help. Advanced searches can help you narrow searches for more precise results.
From the Search field, you may enter Boolean expressions (such as AND, OR, and NOT) or nested expressions for enhanced searching. Wildcards are not supported.
Boolean and nested searches
Boolean operators
The AND, OR, NOT, and NEAR operators allow you to precisely define your search by creating a relationship between search terms. If no operator is specified, AND is used. For example, the query "water ski boat" is equivalent to "water AND ski AND boat."
Nested expressions
Nested expressions allow you to create complex searches for information. For example, "ocean AND ((swim OR surf) NEAR Malibu)" finds topics containing the word "ocean" along with the words "swim" and "Malibu" close together, or containing "ocean" along with the words "surf" and "Malibu" close together.
The basic rules for searching Help topics using nested expressions are as follows:
You can use parentheses to nest expressions within a query. The expressions in parentheses are evaluated before the rest of the query.
If a query does not contain a nested expression, it is evaluated from left to right. For example: "scuba NOT Florida OR Bahamas" finds topics containing the word "scuba" without the word "Florida," or topics containing the word "Bahamas." On the other hand, "scuba NOT (Florida OR Bahamas)" finds topics containing the word "scuba" without either of the words "Florida" or "Bahamas."
You cannot nest expressions more than five levels deep.
Last Updated: January 23, 2007