May 27

Add search option for exact word or phrase

The Search (and Filter) parameters do not provide a way to search for an exact word (e.g. to isolate instances of a word like "form" from appearances within other words like "transform"). Likewise, multiple words are searched in any order, confusing attempts to search for an exact phrase ("over and above" will also match "above the door and overlooking the road"). Would like to see behavior like Google or Outlook search, where a quoted term indicates an exact search. (The problem is a minor one, but amplifies as note collections get larger and more false hits occur)

Pending

Feb 17, 2022

Yes, it would help a great deal to have an exact match option.

Dec 18, 2021

I'm surprised this hasn't received more upvotes or isn't planned, as the lack of boolean search was the first major thing I noticed lacking in NP3.

May 27, 2021

One idea for a way to set this up is for the search mechanism to respect the user to putting spaces at the beginning and end of the search term. Or force them to do quotes with spaces inside the quoted search term, the way Google does - but that might lead to people wanting more complex search logic (not a bad idea, but maybe start simple?) Currently it seems to strip spaces while performing the search. My thought: Search for " form" (space at beginning) would match words like 'form', 'formation', and 'forms' Search for "form " (space at end) would match forms like 'form', 'platform' Search for " form " (space both sides) would only match word 'form' Search for "form" (no spaces) would match all the words above This all assumes the word appears in proper sentences. For search purposes it should also match whitespace - BOL, EOL, Tab, etc - so that it will still match if the line begins/ends with that word. And so maybe it should also consider punctuation like whitespace for matching - so if I search for "form " I will get a sentence ending in "platform." or "the form."