Tech Tuesday: Advanced Searches in Scrivener

Well, last week's Tech Tuesday post on the cool search engine WolframAlpha went over like a lead balloon, so this week it's back to Scrivener to learn about advanced search features.

The easiest search to use in Scrivener is the Project Search, which is available from the Search box in the toolbar. You type in the word, word part, or phrase you're looking for, and a list of all documents containing your search string will appear in the binder. Click on each document to see the search string highlighted wherever it occurs in that file.

Simple!

To close the search results, click the small X at the bottom right corner of the Binder panel.

Now, what if you want to limit your search to your synopses, or you want it to be case-sensitive? Never fear, there's a menu for that. Just click on the magnifying glass (see image below).

If you find yourself performing the same search repeatedly, click on Save Search As Collection. The saved search will retain all of your preferences, and show up in your Collections with the title you provide. Go to View–>Collections–>[name of saved search] to run the search anytime and view the results.

One last note about searching. If you only want to search within the individual text document you're working on, go to Edit–>Find–>Find, and fill out the dialog box.

As always, for more information, check out my book or online courses.

Now that you know how to search, next week we'll discuss Project Replace. Happy hunting!

Need more help? Sign up for an online class, read more Scrivener articles, or schedule a private training session. If you don't already have it, you can download Scrivener here.

[Updated 8/25/14]

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