Boolean Searches

There are two different search types available in Enterprise Organizer Pro: Plain English and Boolean. The default search type is Plain English, which is described in Plain English Searches. This topic describes how to perform Boolean searches.

Boolean searching allows a high degree of control over the search parameters. Activate boolean searching by selecting the Boolean option for the search Type in the Advanced Options section.

Formulating a Query

Connectors: AND OR NOT W/

A Boolean search consists of a group of words linked by the logical connectors and, or, not, and w/number (all case insensitive). The connectors indicate the relationship between the words. For example:

Search Request	Meaning
apple and pear	both words must be present
apple or pear	either word can be present
apple w/5 pear	apple must occur within 5 words of pear
apple not w/5 pear	apple must occur, but not within 5 words of pear
apple and not pear	apple must be present and pear must not be present
apple w/5 xfirstword	apple must occur in the first five words
apple w/5 xlastword	apple must occur in the last five words

Phrases

If certain words must be grouped together, place them in quotation marks:

"apple pie" and "ice cream"

Parentheses

If you use more than one connector, you should use parentheses to indicate precisely what you want to search for. For example:

apple and pear or orange

could mean either of the following:

(apple and pear) or orange
apple and (pear or orange)

Parentheses let Enterprise Organizer Pro know exactly how words and phrases in your search term are related to each other.

NOT and NOT W/number

The NOT and NOT W/ connectors can be confusing. Here are more examples and explanations.

Use NOT in front of any search expression to reverse its meaning. This allows you to exclude documents from a search. The following example will find all documents that contain apple but not pear:

apple and not pear

NOT standing alone can be the start of a search request. For example, not pear would retrieve all documents that did not contain pear. And not (apple w/5 pear) will find all documents where apple does not appear within five words of pear.

If NOT is not at the start of a search request, you need to use either AND or OR with it. The following example will find all documents that either contain apple or do not contain pear:

apple or not pear

The NOT W/ ("not within") operator allows you to search for a word or phrase not in association with another word or phrase. The following example will find all documents with apple as long as it is not within 20 words of pear:

apple not w/20 pear

Note that apple not w/20 pear is not the same as pear not w/20 apple. In the apple not w/20 pear request, Enterprise Organizer Pro searches for apple and excludes cases where apple is too close to pear. In the pear not w/20 apple request, Enterprise Organizer Pro searches for pear and excludes cases where pear is too close to apple.