# Searching the Online Help

The purpose of this topic is to help you understand how to optimize your searches so that you can find the information that you are looking for.

## Finding Information

The Help system provides you with tabs to find information:

Contents tab | Groups the main topics of the Help system into books. To open a book, click the book. To view a topic, click the topic name.
--- | ---
Index tab | Lists index entries alphabetically. To see more index entries, type a keyword in the box. Clicking a keyword in the list displays the related topic.
Search tab | Allows you to search the online Help using a particular word or phrase. The online Help system lists all topics that contain your word or phrase. Type the word or phrase in the box and then press Enter. To view a topic, click the topic name. See Using Advanced Search Techniques.
Glossary tab | Provides a definition for the terms used in this online Help.

Note: The Search will not find the phrase "Do Not Disturb". "Not" is a Boolean operator that will initiate a search for the word "do" but not the word "disturb". Use "do disturb" or "DND" to find this term.

## Using Advanced Search Techniques

When using the search feature in the online Help, the following techniques can help you narrow your searches for more precise results.

Search for | Example | Results
--- | --- | ---
a single word | page | Topics that contain the word "page" and its grammatical variations, such as pager and paging.
a phrase | auto attendant | The query is equivalent to specifying "auto AND attendant," which will find topics containing both of the individual words.

## Boolean operators

The AND, OR, NOT, and NEAR operators enable you to precisely define your search by creating a relationship between search terms. The following table shows how you can use each of these operators. If no operator is specified, AND is used. For example, the query "attendant console programming" (entered without the quotation marks) is equivalent to "attendant AND console AND programming."

Search for | Example | Results
--- | --- | ---
Both terms in the same topic. | attendant AND console | Topics containing both the words "attendant" and "console".
Either term in a topic | attendant OR console | Topics containing either the word "attendant" or the word "console" or both.
The first term without the second term. | attendant NOT console | Topics containing the word "attendant" but not the word "console".

Note: The |, &, and ! characters don't work as Boolean operators (you must use OR, AND, and NOT).

## Finding words in a topic

After you have narrowed your word search to a list of topics, click a topic from the list. Each occurrence of the word will be highlighted in yellow in the topic text. Note that only exact matches are highlighted.

Note: If a Help link is highlighted in yellow as a result of a search, the link may not function until you remove the highlighting by clearing the search results. To clear the search results, search on another word, or by exit the Help.

For large topics, you may find it easier to search for the word in the topic text. To search for a word in a topic:

1. Put your cursor at the top of the topic frame.

2. Type Ctrl-f.

3. Enter the word and click Find Next.

## Linking back to the previously viewed topic

You can go back to the previously viewed topic by clicking the Back button in the menu bar or by pressing the Alt and <- keyboard keys at the same time.