SolidWorks Search
SolidWorks Search searches for file names and for text strings in all
indexed documents.
Searching Adobe Acrobat documents
requires add-ins from Microsoft.
SolidWorks
Search 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 on the Results
tab 
in the left pane.
If the results require more than one pane,
navigate with the Forward 
and Back 
buttons or specify a page for Next
at the bottom of the tab.
The search results include:
Options
In options, you can specify:
To access options in SolidWorks Explorer:
Click Options
and select the Search tab.
Search Locations
Under the Search box, you can select from:
All Locations. All items below.
Local Files.
The local computer plus any paths added with Add Location.
Workgroup PDM. Available when SolidWorks Workgroup PDM
is added in. The vault is searched.
3D ContentCentral
Add Location.
Opens the SolidWorks Explorer Options
dialog box to the Search tab,
where you can specify other locations to search. 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:
Keywords
The following keywords are available:
|
filename |
configuration |
note |
|
fileext |
reference |
table |
|
date |
feature |
material |
|
created |
|
|
The format for date
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.
Date text arguments:
|
"today" |
"last week" |
"last month" |
"last year" |
|
"yesterday" |
"this week" |
"this month" |
"this year" |
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)
Comparison. >
and < with date.
Examples
|
Search String |
Results |
|
nut |
Text beginning with nut, same
as nut* |
|
screw nut |
Text with screw and nut,
also text with only screw and
only nut |
|
"screw nut" |
Exact term screw nut |
|
*nut |
Text with nut in the string,
equivalent to *nut* (slow) |
|
description: nut |
Custom property description
containing nut |
|
material: steel |
Custom property material containing
steel |
|
fileext: sldasm |
Assemblies |
|
filename: 234 |
File name in document starting with 234 |
|
date: yesterday |
Documents modified yesterday |
|
date: "last year" |
Documents modified last year (quotation marks required) |
|
date: >02/01/2006 |
Documents modified after the date, which must be specified (not yesterday) |
|
created: 02/01/2006 |
File creation date |
|
nut date: "today" |
Text nut in documents modified
today |
|
nut number: 123 |
Text nut in documents with custom
property number beginning with
123. |
|
Number: ref876hj Customer: SolidWorks |
Custom property Number with
value ref876hj and custom property
Customer with value SolidWorks |
|
date: "yesterday" fileext: slddrw author: eric |
Documents modified yesterday with file extension slddrw
and custom property author with
value eric |
|
material:steel fileext:drw |
Drawings with steel in annotations
or title block |
A shortcut menu with Copy, Cut, Paste,
etc. facilitates editing of search strings.