haskellbob

Let's say I can only remember that the poet spoke of "the race" but I don't know in which of the 9,392 poems I have by him. Is there a tool in Word for searching for that phrase and then taking me to it?

And please be really basic - instructions for the simpleton - about how to use it. If it exists... Seems to me it does...

Thanks

Bob

JohnthePilot

Yes, there is. I'm using Word2007 which is different, so I'll have to do this from memory, but basically, provided all the poems are in the same document, simply click edit at the top and select find. Enter your phrase in the box and press OK.

gistek

If the poems are in different documents, then use windows explorer's advanced search features.

Navigate to the subdirectory that has the poem files in it.

Clock search and select documents.

Then click advanced search options.

Enter *.doc in the "All or part of document name" window to narrow the search to just doc files (*.txt will narrow the search to only txt files, *poem.doc will narrow the search to only doc files who's filenames end with poem)

Enter the phrase you are looking for in the "Word or phrase in document" window.

Open the More Advanced Options section and uncheck the items you don't want checked (like system files and tape back-up) If all the files are in one directory, you can also uncheck search subfolders.

Once you have your settings the way you want, click search and wait. The speed of the search will depend on the number of files that must be searched and the speed of your computer - CPU, RAM buss, and HD access.

haskellbob

Well, that's useful. But it uses Windows Explorer. Isn't there a Word tool for that? All the poems (or chapters, in my actual case) are not in the same file, by the way... I was hoping Word would, on opening a selected document supposedly containing the phrase, highlight it or take me right to it. Hmmm...

gistek

Edit -> Find in Word will search for the word or phrase you want within the current document. If you're not sure which document the phrase is in, you would need to perform the find function in each suspect file.

Search in Explorer will narrow the number of files you need to check.

Glaswegian

There is no tool within any of the Office applications that will search individual folders in the way you want. gistek's advice is the way to go, otherwise you would have to write VBA code - that's the only other way to do it.