Boolean searching in Help

  1. Click the Search tab, and then type the word or phrase you want to find in the Help file
  2. Click the small triangle pointing to the right beside the search word box to add Boolean operators to your search
  3. Type more search text, if needed
  4. Click List topics.
    The topics appear in a list.

The AND, OR, NOT, and NEAR operators enable you to precisely define your search by creating a relationship between search terms.

The following table shows how you can use each of these operators when searching in Help. If no operator is specified, Help will use AND - for example, the query spacing border printing is equivalent to spacing AND border AND printing.

Search for Example Results
Both terms in the same topic. dib AND palette Topics containing both the words dib and palette.
Either term in a topic. raster OR vector Topics containing either the word raster or the word vector or both.
The first term without the second term. ole NOT dde Topics containing the word OLE, but not the word DDE.
Both terms in the same topic, close together. user NEAR kernel Topics containing the word user within eight words of the word kernel.

NOTE: The characters |, & and ! do not work as Boolean operators - you must use OR, AND and NOT.

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