Finding information by searching

When you enter search terms into the search field, IBM Documentation returns a list of pages that contain all the terms you used. Each search result shows which product and version that page is from.

As you type, IBM Documentation offers suggestions for completing the search string. You can select a suggestion or keep typing to further refine your search.

You can use the following operators to refine your searches.

Quotations: Use quotation marks to search for an exact word or set of words, for example, "database management system".
Wildcards: Use an asterisk (*) in a search string as a placeholder for any missing words or wildcard words in a phrase. Place the phrase in quotation marks for a more precise result, for example "DB2 * table".
OR: Use OR (capitalized) between the terms to search for pages that have two or more terms. Without OR, only pages that have all the terms in the string are returned in the search results.
Minus sign: Use a minus sign (-) before a word to exclude results that include that word. For example, to search for business management without the word process, use business -process management as a search string.
INTITLE: Use INTITLE:term to search for the term in the page title only.

Each search displays a maximum of 500 results in ranked order. To see more than the first 20 search results, click Next 20 results to show 40 results. Click again to see 60 results in a single list, and so on.

You can save search strings by clicking Save Search. You need to sign on with your ibm.com user ID to save searches. You can save a maximum of 10 searches at one time.

Narrowing search results by selecting products

If a general search provides too many results, reduce the scope of the search to one or more products. Begin typing a product name in the search field. The search type-ahead function suggests products that match what you are typing. Select a product from that list to add a product filter to the search scope. You can also click Add Products... under the search field to add more than one product. Click Done to apply your search scope. Only results from the version, product, or products that you selected are returned. The product that you selected is shown on the search bar.

IBM Documentation tracks products as you browse content and follow links. This function is called auto-select. To turn off auto-select so that product filters are not added as you browse, clear the Auto-select check box. Auto-select does not add a product if you come to a topic through search; however, if you click a topic in the navigation tree after a search, the context is set to the collection that contains that topic.

To broaden the scope of your search, click Add products, select another version or product, and click Done. Click Clear all to remove all the selected products from the search scope.

The product filters remain active until you select another option.

Other search tools

To find information more quickly, limit your search results by defining filtering options under Search Results. Only the search results that match your filter selections are returned. In addition to using products, you can filter your search results in the following ways:

Date range: Limit your search results to only the topics that were added or changed in the last week, month, or year, or you can define your own range of dates.
Tasks: Limit your search results to specific task types, such as installing, migrating, or troubleshooting. Only documents that are defined as that task type are included in search results. Results might be incomplete, if some documents were not assigned task types.
Operating systems: Limit your search results to documents that are relevant for the selected operating system and version.