Doing an advanced file search

Excel supports an Advanced File Search feature, which enables you to add more specific search criteria than just simple words (although it uses exactly the same Search In and Search Results Should Be options). To open the Advanced File Search task pane from the Basic File Search task pane, click the Advanced File Search link in the See Also section at the bottom of the task pane. Note that the Advanced File Search link disappears after you do a basic search. To bring it back, simply click the Modify button at the bottom of the Search Results task pane.

The Advanced File Search task pane contains a Search For section where you specify theconditions that must be met in order for a file to appear in the Search Results task pane. Here's what you find below this section:

• Go button: Begin the search.
• Restore button: Go back to the Basic File Search task pane.
• Search In combo box: Specify which drives and folders to search.
• Results Should Be drop-down list box: Specify which types of files to search for.

The last two boxes - Search In and Results Should Be - function exactly the same as their counterparts in the Basic File Search task pane.

The Search For section contains the following items for specifying the condition or conditions to be applied in the search:

• Property is the combo box where you specify the property to search for. The pop-up menu attached to this box displays a complete list of things that you can specify including the author, keywords, date last saved or printed, file size, and total editing time, as well as the more mundane default of Text or Property.
• Condition is the drop-down list box where you select the type of limitation set on the property during the search. The conditions available vary according to the type of property that you select in the Property combo box:

  For text properties, you can specify Is (Exactly) for exact matches or Includes for partial matches.
  
  For date properties, you can specify On, On or After, On or Before, along with a variety of time-specific conditions.
  
  For numeric properties, you can specify Equals, Not Equal To, More Than, Less Than, At Least, and At Most.

• Value is the text box where you enter the text or value that is used in judging whether the condition that you set up for the property you specified is TRUE or FALSE. You enter the label or number that you want used in the Value text box just as you would enter it in your spreadsheet.

After using these three boxes to specify your search criteria, click the Add button to add them to the list box that appears in the middle of the Advanced File Search task pane.

When specifying search criteria in this task pane, you can apply more than a single set of criteria. After specifying the second set of criteria in the Property, Condition, and Value boxes, choose between the And and the Or option button before you click the Add button:

1. When you select And, a file matches only when all the criteria applied to it are TRUE.
2. When you select Or, a file matches when any one of the criteria applied to it is TRUE.

After you finish adding criteria in the Search For section, the place to search in the Search In combo box, and the files to search for in the Results Should Be drop-down list box, you begin the advanced searching by clicking the Go button. As when doing a basic search, the Advanced File Search task pane becomes a Search Results task pane where the files that meet your criteria appear. You can then open the files for editing by clicking their file icons.