<commit_before>+++
title = "Searching Content"
description = "Searching for specific content within BookStack and learning the advanced search syntax"
date = "2017-04-16"
type = "user-doc"
+++

The ability to search your documentation is vital to day-to-day use.
There are a few locations within BookStack where you can search for your content.
Below is a list of search functions within BookStack:

* **Header Search Bar** - The search bar/link in the header of every page allows you to search from anywhere. This search is a global search which will look across all books, chapters and pages in your system. This page contains an interface to help you build a more advanced search. This interface simply generates a more advanced search term using the syntax described below.
* **Book/Chapter Search Bar** - When viewing a book or chapter a search bar can be found in the top of the left sidebar. These searches will look across all child items.
* **Move & Link Selection** - When choosing to move a page/chapter or when selecting a page/chapter/book to link to within the editor the most popular items are shown but you also have the ability to search.

---

## Advanced Search Syntax

All of the above search locations within BookStack share the ability to use advanced search syntax. An easy way to see this syntax in action is to use the global search in BookStack then play with the search filters which will update the search term with the below syntax. Below are details of the different types of syntax that can be used:

<table width="100%">
  <tr style="font-weight:bold;">
    <th width="16%">Search Type</th>
    <th width="20%">Syntax</th>
    <th width="16%">Examples</th>
    <th>Description</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Normal Searches</td>
    <td>&lt;term_a&gt; &lt;term_b&gt;</td>
    <td>london meeting</td>
    <td>Normal word searches across the name and description or body of your content. When mulitple terms are searched only one term has to match your content but content containing both terms will be higher in the results.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Exact Searches</td><commit_msg>Improved search wording<commit_after>+++
title = "Searching Content"
description = "Searching for specific content within BookStack and learning the advanced search syntax"
date = "2017-04-16"
type = "user-doc"
+++

The ability to search your documentation is vital to day-to-day use.
There are a few locations within BookStack where you can search for your content.
Below is a list of search functions within BookStack:

* **Header Search Bar** - The search bar/link in the header of every page allows you to search from anywhere. This search is a global search which will look across all books, chapters and pages in your system. After performing a search in this box you'll be led to a search page that includes options and features that can help you build a more advanced search.
* **Book/Chapter Search Bar** - When viewing a book or chapter a search bar can be found in the top of the left sidebar. These searches will look across all child items.
* **Move & Link Selection** - When choosing to move a page/chapter or when selecting a page/chapter/book to link to within the editor the most popular items are shown but you also have the ability to search.

---

## Advanced Search Syntax

All of the above search locations within BookStack share the ability to use advanced search syntax. An easy way to see this syntax in action is to use the global search in BookStack then play with the search filters which will update the search term with the below syntax. Below are details of the different types of syntax that can be used:

<table width="100%">
  <tr style="font-weight:bold;">
    <th width="16%">Search Type</th>
    <th width="20%">Syntax</th>
    <th width="16%">Examples</th>
    <th>Description</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Normal Searches</td>
    <td>&lt;term_a&gt; &lt;term_b&gt;</td>
    <td>london meeting</td>
    <td>Normal word searches across the name and description or body of your content. When mulitple terms are searched only one term has to match your content but content containing both terms will be higher in the results.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Exact Searches</td>
{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.07586533902323377, 'fraction_numerical': 0.008060692271218587, 'mean_word_length': 4.077015643802647, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 51, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 51, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
{'dir': 'git-commits-cleaned', 'id': '2337385', 'n_tokens_mistral': 1133, 'n_tokens_neox': 1087, 'n_words': 618}