How to Search

The search action provides a way to search for occurrences of words or phrases in any reference work.

To perform a search:

1. Open the reference work that you wish to search, using the buttons on the Main Toolbar. (Note: You can open the reference work to any reference--your search will still be performed through the entire reference work.)

2. Click the Search button on the Main Toolbar and the Search Criteria dialog will be displayed.

3. Type the desired word or phrase in the Word or Phrase edit box. OneTouch® allows you to perform "compound" searches using the following special "operators":

+ Use the plus symbol to find instances where both appear. For example, "life + death" will return every verse where both "life" and "death" occur.

/ Use the forward slash symbol to find instances where either appear. For example, "life / death" will return every verse where either word occurs.

˜ Use the tilde symbol to find instances where the first word occurs but not the second. For example, "life ˜ death" will return every verse where the word "life" occurs but the word "death" does not.

() Use parentheses to group search conditions. For example, "God + (life / death)" will return every verse where the word "God" appears and either the word "life" or the word "death".

Note: The dash symbol (-) is not a special search operator, as it is used to hyphenated words (for example, "bond-servant").

In addition, you can use the asterisk (*) or question mark (?) symbols to perform "wild card" searches. The asterisk is used to find all possible endings of a word, regardless of the number of letters. For example, "liv*" will return every verse containing any word that begins with the letters "liv", including "live", "living", "liver", and more. By contrast, the question mark represents a single unknown character. For example, "forg?ve" would return every verse containing either "forgive" or "forgave".

4. If you want the search to find only those occurrences which exactly match the case that you have entered, click the check box labeled Case Sensitive. (For example, a case sensitive search for "Lord" would find every occurrence of "Lord"; while a non-case sensitive search would find every occurrence of "Lord", "lord", and "LORD".)

5. In a Concordance (or Bible) search only, you can limit the search within a specific range of books (e.g., just Psalms, or just the Gospels). To do that, specify the desired Start Book and End Book. To limit the search to a single book, select the same book as both the Start Book and the End Book.

6. The Search dialog will automatically be set to search your default reference work of the selected type. However, you can search any reference work in the current type. Click the button in the To Search field, then click the desired reference work.

7. Click the button to begin the search or click the button to exit the Search dialog without performing the search. (Note: The OK button will be disabled until you have entered a word or phrase for which to search.)

To view the results of a search:

1. The results of a search are displayed in the window type corresponding to the reference work that you searched, with the search results being displayed in a Search Pane at the top of the window. The number of matches found, the work searched, and the word or phrase used in the search are displayed at the top of the Search Pane.

2. To resize the Search Pane and text pane, move the mouse cursor to the horizontal splitter between the two, until the cursor appears as , then click and drag the splitter line to see more or less of the search results. In the same way, you can resize the Search Pane by moving the mouse cursor to the vertical splitter between the Reference and Context titles, until the cursor appears as , then click and drag the splitter line to see more or less of the Reference pane.

3. As mentioned above, the Search Pane is divided into two sections: Reference and Context. Reference displays the reference for each match found during the search. Double-click any reference to display that material in the text pane. Context displays the match, along with some of the text "surrounding" the match, to give a sense of the context. Every match found is highlighted, both in the Context pane and in the text pane.

4. Often, a search will find more matches than can be displayed at one time in the Search Pane. Use the scroll bar (located at the far right of the Search Pane) to scroll through all of the matches found.

Also See:

Concordance Search (Searching the Bible) for instructions on searching the Bible for a word or phrase.

Englishman's Concordance Search for instructions on searching the Bible, based on the original language (Greek or Hebrew) root word.

Organize Reference Works Dialog for instructions on setting your preferred order for each reference work type.

Searching for Special Characters and Text Types for instructions on focusing your search on a special character or text type.