Which type of search syntax should I use?

By default, Search employs a web-style syntax; that is, if you enter several words to search on, the documents returned in the result set will contain those words, but not necessarily in the order specified in the Search field. It is equivalent to using an AND operator between each word in the search query. If you prefer Notes-style syntax, you can change it.

In Notes-style syntax, multiple terms in a search query will find documents where those terms appear in the exact order entered in the Search field (as if they were enclosed in quotation marks).

If you prefer the web-style syntax for search queries, you need to do nothing since it is the default query type. If you prefer Notes-style syntax as the default you can choose one of the following options:

  • Select the preference Use Notes® (not web) query syntax in the view search bar.

    To change this preference, choose File > Preferences and then click Basic Notes Client Configuration (Notes Basic client users: Choose File > Preferences > User Preferences, Basic tab). Then in the Additional Options list, select Use Notes (not web) query syntax in the view search bar

  • Change the notes.ini setting UseFTSyntaxOnly=0 to UseFTSyntaxOnly=1.

To switch to a Notes-style syntax for a particular query without changing the default web-style preference, you can prepend a forward slash (/) to the query, for example:

/sales results

This query only returns documents with these terms in the order specified.