Search

SolidWorks Search is available in SolidWorks and SolidWorks Explorer to search for file names and for text strings in all indexed documents.

Searching Adobe Acrobat documents requires add-ins from Microsoft.

SolidWorks Search is faster than other search engines and provides:

• Full text search (searching text inside documents)

• Advanced search (searches for multiple criteria)

• Keywords (for precise searches)

• Retrieval of all types of documents  

Windows Desktop Search is installed with SolidWorks and indexes the resources once before searching begins, either after installation or when you initiate the first search. Subsequent indexing of added files is fast and transparent.

To search:

In the SolidWorks Search box , type the text or keywords to search for, then press Enter.

Click to choose a recent search. The last 10 unique searches are listed.

Results

The search results appear:

• In SolidWorks, on the Search tab in the Task Pane.

• In SolidWorks Explorer, on the Results tab in the left pane.

If the results require more than one page, navigate with the Forward and Back buttons or specify a page for Next at the bottom of the tab.

The search results include:

• Preview

• File name

• Search keywords and their contexts

• Location

• Where used, if PDMWorks is added in

Options

In Options, you can specify:

• Search while typing

• Include 3D Content Central results

• Number of results per page

• Maximum number of results per data source

• Indexing performance

• Dissection

To access options in SolidWorks:

• Specify search paths in Tools, Options, System Options, File Locations. Select Search Paths in Show folders for.

• Specify other options in Tools, Options, System Options, Search.

To access option in SolidWorks Explorer:

Click Options and select the Search tab.

Search Locations

On the Search tab , you can select from:

• All Locations. All items below.

• Local Files. The local computer plus any paths added with Add Location.

• SolidWorks Workgroup PDM. Available when Workgroup PDM is added in. The vault is searched.

• 3D Content Central

• Add Location. Opens the Options dialog box at File Locations with Search Paths in Show folders for. Selections, including locations on networks, are added to the local search.

SolidWorks Search does not search folder names.

Search Command Syntax

A colon and space separate keywords from the values to be searched for. The syntax is:

• <string>

• <keyword or custom property>:<value>

Keywords

The following keywords are available:

The format for Modified and Created is that specified on the local computer (mm/dd/yyyy or dd/mm/yyyy, for example).

Any custom property can be a keyword. For example, if a SolidWorks document contains custom property Customer, a search can be Customer: ACME.

Some properties such as Material are mapped to internal SolidWorks values. To bypass the SolidWorks internal search to find specific file custom properties, you can specify FileProperty<property>:<property_name> in the search string. For example, FilePropertyMaterial:steel will search only the custom property material for steel and not the SolidWorks internal property.

The following operators are supported:

• Wildcard. * (asterisk)

• Quotation Marks. " " (for exact term, including spaces)

• Spaces for compound strings. (implicit AND)

Modified and Created

The format for Modified and Created is that specified on the local computer (mm/dd/yyyy or dd/mm/yyyy, for example).

Text arguments:

The following operators are supported:

• Comparison. > and < with Modified and Created.

Examples

A shortcut menu with Copy, Cut, Paste, etc. facilitates editing of search strings.