Search tips

Video

Watch this short demonstration of NEPAccess search features

NEPAccess Search-Word Modifiers

Use these keyboard symbols within the search box to narrow or expand your search.

Search modifier	What it does	For example:
Search modifier " "	What it does Multiple words placed within double quotes show results only with that exact phrase. The Find within dropdown menu in the search box does the same thing, with additional options to choose how close the words must be to each other.	For example: "Landscape restoration" → these two words, in that order.
Search modifier AND	What it does This is the default search: AND or a word space are read as the same thing. Since the system must find all these words in the same document, this will narrow your results.	For example: Recreation culture → must contain both of these words. Recreation AND culture → must contain both of these words.
Search modifier NOT -	What it does Exclude a word or phrase from a search. - (minus sign) Does the same thing	For example: Mining NOT copper → mining but not copper
Search modifier *	What it does The * symbol placed after a word is a multi-character wild card—it will find all words or phrases that include the other letters of your search word.	For example: Land* → landscape, landlord, landfill, landmark, land bridge, *Lnd → land, legend, Lakeland**.
Search modifier ?	What it does The ? symbol placed after or within a word is a single-character wild card—it looks for other words that match that search-word with the single character replaced.	For example: te?t → text and test. tes? → test, TESP.
Search modifier OR \| \|\|	What it does This will find results related to either search word or to both. This will expand your search results and find multiple words that express the same idea. \| or \|\| (pipes) do the same thing	For example: tribe OR tribes → singular and plural highways OR viaducts OR feeways → any or all words.
Search modifier ~	What it does Use the ~ (tilde) symbol at the end of a phrase to do a proximity search, finding words that are within a specific distance from each other in the text.	For example: "mine Tribe"~20 → mine and Tribe within 20 words.
Search modifier ( )	What it does Use parentheses to group search terms, specify the order of operations, and apply different modifiers to different phrases.	For example: ("copper mining" ~10) AND ("desert tortoise" OR "desert toad") → copper and mining within 10 words and → either desert tortoise or desert toad.

Search modifier	What it does
Search modifier " "	What it does Multiple words placed within double quotes show results only with that exact phrase.
Search modifier AND	What it does This is the default search: AND or a word space are read as the same thing. Since the system must find all these words in the same document, this will narrow your results.
Search modifier NOT -	What it does Exclude a word or phrase from a search. - (minus sign) Does the same thing
Search modifier *	What it does The * symbol placed after a word is a multi-character wild card—it will find all words or phrases that include the other letters of your search word.
Search modifier ?	What it does The ? symbol placed after or within a word is a single-character wild card—it looks for other words that match that search-word with the single character replaced.
Search modifier OR \| \|\|	What it does This will find results related to either search word or to both. This will expand your search results and find multiple words that express the same idea. \| or \|\| (pipes) do the same thing
Search modifier ~	What it does Use the ~ (tilde) symbol at the end of a phrase to do a proximity search, finding words that are within a specific distance from each other in the text.
Search modifier ( )	What it does Use parentheses to group search terms, specify the order of operations, and apply different modifiers to different phrases.

See Apache Lucene Query Syntax for more search tips.

The search box

Our intelligent search box looks for your search words both within the title and the full text of the document.
It will also search metadata tags we’ve attached to the files to categorize them
Leave the search box empty to return everything in the database. Tip: then use the filters to narrow that search.

Text snippets

The search results show a snippet of document text showing your search words in context on the page.
Your search words are shown in a bold font.
A checkbox above the search results turns the text snippets on or off.

Words the search engine ignores

The words AND, NOT, and OR ( in all caps) are read as search term modifiers, not search terms.

For more precision, the search system ignores extremely common words, like articles, pronouns, and prepositions. These words won’t influence search results.

For example, the search query, “to be or not to be” will not return any results.

Search Tips v1.5