Keyword Searching

[GeorgeBradford 0]

Hi Evernote Forum,

I wish to know if any (or all) of the Evernote products supports keyword searches that in addition to note properties (eg, words in titles and other associated properties such as post date, time, etc) if the search function will take those keywords and look for matches if the note contains documents (eg, MS Word, PDF, etc) within those documents. Within inserted file searching in other words.

I searched the forum for clues and did not really turn up a clear answer. Your help on this is greatly appreciated. And I have a follow up question, which while likely not a part of the feature set of Evernote could be a suggestion for improvement...

Second question: among the operators that Evernote supports for searches (and I'm still looking for a document that states what types of operators are supported...), is the function AROUND(n) included? 

In case the reader is not sure what I mean by this function, it allows word or phrase proximity searching. For example, you can take two words or phrases, the first: "strategy" or "business strategy" and the second: "microsoft" or "microsoft windows" and look for matches within a set number of words, so that matches beyond n are not included in the results. (For the previous examples, the syntax for the search for each of the two collections would be this: strategy AROUND(n) microsoft or "business strategy" AROUND(n) "microsoft windows" - where you set n to some number that the pairs must fall within.

Thank you in advance for any help with my two questions.

-George Bradford

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, GeorgeBradford said:

I wish to know if any (or all) of the Evernote products supports keyword searches that in addition to note properties (eg, words in titles and other associated properties such as post date, time, etc) if the search function will take those keywords and look for matches if the note contains documents (eg, MS Word, PDF, etc) within those documents. Within inserted file searching in other words.

This was recently discussed here https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/78911-inline-tags-workaround/?
and I presented my custom script I use on my Mac

Of course there's nothing stoping you from using something like    keyword_xxxx     in your note/document and searching for it.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,958]

In a very brief test, I find that I can search for words within PDFs embedded in/attached to an Evernote note. Not (apparently) .doc files, though. And words that appear in image files attached to notes can also be searched. For details of EN's search syntax, see https://dev.evernote.com/doc/articles/search_grammar.php.

[CalS 5,280]

3 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

In a very brief test, I find that I can search for words within PDFs embedded in/attached to an Evernote note. Not (apparently) .doc files, though. And words that appear in image files attached to notes can also be searched. For details of EN's search syntax, see https://dev.evernote.com/doc/articles/search_grammar.php.

If you are a premium subscriber the content of Word and Excel files are included in searches.  The attachment icon will be bordered in yellow if the search text is included in the attachment.

7 hours ago, GeorgeBradford said:

I wish to know if any (or all) of the Evernote products supports keyword searches

Keyword searches are just another form of a text search.  Another way to prefix keywords is to use the underscore, _.  This character is searchable within EN notes.  So _Keyword won't have any false positives associated with it, just like a repeating set of characters.  But, it's just one character for the lazy among us.

 

7 hours ago, GeorgeBradford said:

is the function AROUND(n) included? 

Nope.

 

 

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

14 hours ago, GeorgeBradford said:

I wish to know if any (or all) of the Evernote products supports keyword searches that in addition to note properties (eg, words in titles and other associated properties such as post date, time, etc) if the search function will take those keywords and look for matches if the note contains documents (eg, MS Word, PDF, etc) within those documents. Within inserted file searching in other words.

Evernote does not have a special feature for "keywords".  I'm not sure what you mean by "keywords", but it is NOT in the Evernote Search grammar.  Perhaps you mean tags?  Although it is not specifically referenced as such, I often think of words in the Note Title as keywords, or at least that is how I use the Note Title.

Among other note properties, Evernote can search for:

1. Words (but not characters or substrings)
   1. If you enter a word in the Search box, then Evernote will search for words that start with that would (it's like an implied * at the end of the word), in these fields:
      1. Note contents
      2. PDF attachments
      3. Images
      4. Note Title
      5. Note tags
      6. If you have a Premium account, it will also search for MS Office and Apple iWork documents that are attached.  For details see Which Evernote product is right for me? 
   2. If you enter a search qualifier, like tag: or intitle: and then a word, it will search for that exact word as a tag, or as a word in the Title.
      1. You can add an * at the end of the word to search for words that start with your search word.

For more details, and the authoritative guide to Evernote searching, see:

• How to use Evernote's advanced search syntax 

• Evernote Search grammar

• Which Evernote product is right for me?

You should use these references rather than summaries provided by me, or others.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,958]

13 hours ago, csihilling said:

17 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

In a very brief test, I find that I can search for words within PDFs embedded in/attached to an Evernote note. Not (apparently) .doc files, though. And words that appear in image files attached to notes can also be searched. For details of EN's search syntax, see https://dev.evernote.com/doc/articles/search_grammar.php.

If you are a premium subscriber the content of Word and Excel files are included in searches.  The attachment icon will be bordered in yellow if the search text is included in the attachment.

OK, it took a couple of tries to see how this works. In the Windows desktop client, I created a blank note and dragged several Word and .PDF files into it. I tried doing a search with the new Ctrl+Q shortcut, but while it located this note, there was no yellow border, nor were instances of the search term in the .PDF highlighted. Only when I went to the search bar at the top of the Note List did a search produce the yellow border and highlighting. So it does work, but of course the searched text found in Word files is not displayed in the note; I have to open the attachment and then search again for the word. So, useful, but with limitations. Thanks for the pointer, Cal.

[CalS 5,280]

1 hour ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

OK, it took a couple of tries to see how this works. In the Windows desktop client, I created a blank note and dragged several Word and .PDF files into it. I tried doing a search with the new Ctrl+Q shortcut, but while it located this note, there was no yellow border, nor were instances of the search term in the .PDF highlighted. Only when I went to the search bar at the top of the Note List did a search produce the yellow border and highlighting. So it does work, but of course the searched text found in Word files is not displayed in the note; I have to open the attachment and then search again for the word. So, useful, but with limitations. Thanks for the pointer, Cal.

You are welcome.  Though it sounds like there may be a bug if Ctrl-Q searches don't highlight the attachments containing the search terms?  Seems search bar and Ctrl-Q should act the same in that regard.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,958]

3 minutes ago, csihilling said:

You are welcome.  Though it sounds like there may be a bug if Ctrl-Q searches don't highlight the attachments containing the search terms?  Seems search bar and Ctrl-Q should act the same in that regard.

Yes, I thought so too. Maybe a bug, maybe just a difference.

[CalS 5,280]

9 minutes ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

Yes, I thought so too. Maybe a bug, maybe just a difference.

Which would beg the question why? 

[GeorgeBradford 0]

8 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

OK, it took a couple of tries to see how this works. In the Windows desktop client, I created a blank note and dragged several Word and .PDF files into it. I tried doing a search with the new Ctrl+Q shortcut, but while it located this note, there was no yellow border, nor were instances of the search term in the .PDF highlighted. Only when I went to the search bar at the top of the Note List did a search produce the yellow border and highlighting. So it does work, but of course the searched text found in Word files is not displayed in the note; I have to open the attachment and then search again for the word. So, useful, but with limitations. Thanks for the pointer, Cal.

Hi Dave-in-Decatur,

When you write, "So it does work, but...I have to open the attachment and then search..." do you mean that to search an embedded file the embedded file has to be in an open window?

I ask because one useful feature I was hoping the premium produce would support is to identify which notes contain the search word and/or if an embedded document contains the search word. It would be pointless to have to open every document to make the search effective for this purpose.

Thanks for your help with this!

-George

[CalS 5,280]

Attachments do not have to be open for EN search to find the search term in them.  But you do have to open the attachment to locate the search term in it.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,958]

52 minutes ago, GeorgeBradford said:

When you write, "So it does work, but...I have to open the attachment and then search..." do you mean that to search an embedded file the embedded file has to be in an open window?

Sorry I was unclear. As Cal said,

5 minutes ago, csihilling said:

Attachments do not have to be open for EN search to find the search term in them.  But you do have to open the attachment to locate the search term in it.

The search (from the Evernote search bar) finds notes that have the search term, and in a given note highlights any attachment that has the term. But if the attachment is a Word document, you then have to open it in Word; and you do have to then repeat the search in Word to find the exact instances. EN does not have its own facility to display Word documents (as it does PDFs).

[s2sailor 2,193]

On 6/18/2016 at 9:41 AM, Dave-in-Decatur said:

Only when I went to the search bar at the top of the Note List did a search produce the yellow border and highlighting. So it does work,

I have never seen a yellow border highlight around a file icon.  The file contents are being indexed and search finds the notes but I've never seen a highlighted icon.  No big deal, just interesting.

[CalS 5,280]

5 hours ago, s2sailor said:

I have never seen a yellow border highlight around a file icon.  The file contents are being indexed and search finds the notes but I've never seen a highlighted icon.  No big deal, just interesting.

For your viewing pleasure.

[s2sailor 2,193]

11 hours ago, csihilling said:

For your viewing pleasure

Yup, no yellow box for me ... curious.

[CalS 5,280]

Weird on a good day.  Could try the old reboot process....