Searching for files

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics (More info?)

I tell search to look in 1 specific folder to find documents with a specific
word. I have most of my documents in word perfect format and a few in word.
It only returns results from word files. It does not give me word perfect
documents. I am certain that there are word perfect files that it should
return -- the few word files I have here are converted word perfect files
and there are 2 versions of them. It gives me word files only. If I tell
it to search for all files and folders instead of just documents I get the
exact same result.

How can I make XP search word perfect files?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics (More info?)

Hi Kathryn,

I have battled with the same sort of problem for a while, but the
difference is that I could not get Windows search tools to find plain
text even in Word files!

The probable cause of your problem is that Wordperfect does not store
text as consecutive ASCII characters (I have seen that sometimes Word
does the same thing, for example I want to search word docs for the
text "error!" and you can see below how in the first case word has put
the binary code 00 between each character.)

0013F0 0D 00 0D 00 65 00 72 00-72 00 6F 00 72 00 21 00 e r r o r !

001400 20 72 65 66 65 72 65 6E-63 65 20 74 6F 20 53 65 reference to
Se
001410 63 20 31 2E 31 2E 32 20-28 62 61 63 6B 20 74 6F c 1.1.2 (back
to
001420 20 6E 6F 72 6D 61 6C 29-20 20 28 13 20 52 45 46 normal) (
REF
001430 20 5F 52 65 66 31 31 34-34 38 31 37 35 30 20 5C _Ref114481750
\
001440 6E 20 5C 68 20 01 14 30-15 29 0D 65 72 72 6F 72 n \h 0)
error
001450 21 20 72 65 66 65 72 65-6E 63 65 20 74 6F 20 53 ! reference to
S
001460 65 63 20 31 2E 31 2E 31-2E 31 20 28 64 65 6C 65 ec 1.1.1.1
(dele
001470 74 65 64 29 20 20 28 13-20 52 45 46 20 5F 52 65 ted) ( REF
_Re

However even in the above file, the normal Windows search does not find
the existing consecutive character string "error!". (And for that
matter neither does a windows port of grep).

I have been on a hunt for windows search tools, and think that I may
have found one that can perform this search, but I am still evaluating
it. But if there are interposed characters even this won't help you. So
you may be asking for what I had planned to write, being a standalone
search util that ignores non-text chars in the search. If one is going
to write that, then one might as well put a decent search syntax in so
that something like
error!*sec?1
would expand to search for any number of characters for the * and only
one character (any character for the ?).

Sorry I can't give you a ready made solution, but maybe you understand
the problem better (if it is the real problem).

Fred

 

[Malke]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics (More info?)

Kathryn wrote:

> I tell search to look in 1 specific folder to find documents with a
> specific
> word. I have most of my documents in word perfect format and a few in
> word.
> It only returns results from word files. It does not give me word
> perfect
> documents. I am certain that there are word perfect files that it
> should return -- the few word files I have here are converted word
> perfect files
> and there are 2 versions of them. It gives me word files only. If I
> tell it to search for all files and folders instead of just documents
> I get the exact same result.
>
> How can I make XP search word perfect files?

Although I'm fond of XP, I think its search capability leaves much to be
desired. One of the first programs I install on all my XP machines is
the free Agent Ransack. Try it and you'll enjoy searching once again.

http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/

Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User