2.6 Refining searches with Boolean operators

Introduction:

The Affinitext library uses ‘Boolean’ terms for refining your search.  Use the following tips to refine your search results:

Using AND, OR, NOT or NEAR:

agreement AND charges	Finds topics containing both words
agreement OR charges	Finds topics containing either search word or both words
agreement NOT charges	Finds topics containing the first search term (‘agreement’) but not the second one (‘charges’) (Note: The NOT operator cannot be used with a single term e.g. NOT charges)
agreement NEAR charges	The default setting for NEAR finds topics where the two search words have a maximum distance of 8 words between them
agreement NEAR/n charges	Finds topics where the two terms have a maximum distance of ‘n’ words between them, defined by the user. Replace the “n” with a number to broaden the search
"performance measurement"	Finds topics containing the whole term within the double speech marks.

Match Similar Words

Type in the search term and tick the box ‘Match similar words’

Finds exact matches or similar words to the search term, for example the search term ‘construction’ would also find ‘instruction’

Match Exact Words

Type in search term and tick the box ‘Match exact words’

Finds only exact matches to the search term.

Case-Sensitive Searching

Type in the search term, for example: ‘JavaScript’, and tick the box ‘Case-sensitive searching’.

Finds topics containing the search term as spelled with capital and lower-case letters (it would not find the word ‘JavaScript’ for example). Note: Case-sensitive searching can only be done when ‘Match similar words’ is un-ticked.

Match Grammatical Forms

Type in the word stem of a search term and click ‘Match Grammatical Forms’.

Finds all grammatical forms derived from the word stem (for example ‘include’ would search for ‘includes’, ‘including’, ‘included’).

Searching within Titles only

Type in the search term and tick the box ‘Search titles only’.

Finds those titles in the table of contents that contain the search term.

Partial Word Search
Use the asterisk to broaden a search based on a common stem, eg beneficia* will find terms containing all words starting with ‘beneficia’ such as ‘beneficiary’, ‘beneficiaries’ or ‘beneficial’.
Note - The asterisk works similarly in the middle of a word, but you cannot use it at the beginning of a word.
Use the question mark key to replace a character, eg si?e will find terms such as 'site’, 'size' or 'side'.

Grouping
Further refinement can be made by grouping eg '(agreement OR deed) AND notice' will return results from topics containing agreement and notice and deed and notice.

For more information, contact [e-mail]

For a printable version of this article, please download the document attached at the foot of this article.

Document Version Control

Article Number:                        AFHC01004
Authors:                                   Jem Fennell
Creation Date:                         1 Jan 2021
Document Owner:                   Jem Fennell
Approved by:                          Affinitext Board of Directors
Date of last review:                 18th September 2024
Reviewed by:                          Jem Fennell
Date of next review:               1st October 2025