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 included with the SOLIDWORKS
software 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, enter 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 Forward
and Back
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
Options
You can specify:
- Search paths
-
Search while typing
- Number of results per page
- Maximum number of results per search
- Index Now
To access options in SOLIDWORKS Explorer, click Options and select the Search
tab.
Search Locations
Under the Search box, you can select:
- All Locations. All
items below.
- Local Files. The
local computer plus any paths added with Add Location.
- 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:
- string
- keyword
or custom property: value
You can use the shortcut menu with Copy, Cut, and Paste to edit search strings.
Keywords
The following
keywords are available:
| filename |
configuration |
note |
| fileext |
reference |
table |
| date |
feature |
material |
| created |
|
|
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 date format
is the format that is specified on the local computer. For example, mm/dd/yyyy or dd/mm/yyyy. You can use the following date text
arguments:
| "today" |
"last week" |
"last month" |
"last year" |
| "yesterday" |
"this week" |
"this month" |
"this year" |
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:
>02/01/2018 |
Documents modified after the
date, which must be specified (not yesterday) |
| created: 02/01/2018 |
File creation date |
| nut
date: "today" |
Text nut in documents modified today |
| nut
number: 123 |
Text nut in documents with the custom property
number beginning with
123. |
| Number: ref876hj Customer: SOLIDWORKS |
Custom property Number with the value ref876hj and custom property
Customer with the value
SOLIDWORKS
|
| date:
"yesterday" fileext: slddrw author: eric |
Documents modified yesterday with
the file extension slddrw and
custom property author with
the value eric
|
| material:steel fileext:drw |
Drawings with steel in annotations or title block
|