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Old 03-30-2015, 11:29 PM
eNGiNe eNGiNe is offline Windows 7 32bit Office 2010 64bit
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Default needles and haystacks – how to find that one .doc file containing a specific word? Windows 7

There's the ghost of a chance that a long-lost document one of my predecessors worked on may still be around, which would save all of us time and effort now an update is unexpectedly required. I've located a few candidate directories he used to use, but realise I have no idea how to search through all the .doc files for a string :-{



Indexing is probably not an option, because the directories in question are on a server, not my PC.

Hints and tips welcome!

Last edited by Charles Kenyon; 04-02-2015 at 05:08 AM. Reason: Mark as solved
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Old 03-31-2015, 04:43 AM
BruceM BruceM is offline Windows 7 64bit Office 2010 32bit
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In My Computer you can type the key word into the search box at the top right. In the list that appears below the box, click Type and enter .doc.
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Old 03-31-2015, 05:11 AM
Charles Kenyon Charles Kenyon is offline Windows 7 64bit Office 2010 32bit
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How to Find & ReplaceAll on a batch of documents in the same folder may give you a start.
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Old 03-31-2015, 11:07 PM
eNGiNe eNGiNe is offline Windows 7 32bit Office 2010 64bit
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@ Bruce – "My Mileage Does Differ" :-} no sign of any box for extending search options. Sometimes I see a teasing "Add a search filter", but with two apparently built-in options (Date and Size) and no visible way to add anything else.
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Old 03-31-2015, 11:16 PM
eNGiNe eNGiNe is offline Windows 7 32bit Office 2010 64bit
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@ Charles – I cautiously approached the macro, updated Path to Use … and retired baffled. Running the macro merely prompted me to confirm whether I wanted to process all files in the folder (which folder? poor user feedback!) and then appeared to do nothing.

Could well be because the directory in question is apparently a network shortcut.
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Old 03-31-2015, 11:32 PM
eNGiNe eNGiNe is offline Windows 7 32bit Office 2010 64bit
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Aha! after more Internet searches and experimentation, it seems to be possible to search directory per directory – which is better than nothing – as easily as locating the directory and entering *.doc "string" in the Search field.

As for "Add a filter", I quote from answers.microsoft.com:
Quote:
"Add a search filter" is an invitation to use one of the filters in the line underneath it. It is not an invitation to set up filters of your own.
An attitude strongly reminiscent of "any colour you like, as long as it's black" …
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Old 04-01-2015, 09:39 AM
BruceM BruceM is offline Windows 7 64bit Office 2010 32bit
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Microsoft went backwards with search capability in Windows 7, IMHO. It may be possible to do lots of things, but it is not always clear how to go about doing them. I found that I too had only Date and Size. However, more options appeared after I typed a keyword and did a search, then clicked in the search box again.

However, it works to do:
Search words type:=.doc

Or from a different angle:
Search words kind:=document

"Search words" is the stand-in for the word(s) for which you are searching.
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Old 04-02-2015, 05:05 AM
Charles Kenyon Charles Kenyon is offline Windows 7 64bit Office 2010 32bit
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Thank you. I've bookmarked it.
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