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This section introduces basic search concepts, and describes advanced techniques that produce more efficient Comptroller.Texas.Gov search results.
Getting Started with Search
To search Comptroller.Texas.Gov, type a few descriptive words in the search box, and press the Enter key or click the search button. A results page appears with a list containing your search terms, with the most relevant search results appearing at the top of the page. By default, only pages that include all of your search terms are returned. So to broaden or restrict the search, include fewer or more terms. You do not need to include "and" between the terms. For example, to search for engineering product specification documents, type the following:
Capitalization
Searches are not case sensitive; All letters are handled as lower case. For example, searches for "george washington," "George Washington," and "George washington" return the same results.
Common Words
Because they tend to slow down your search without improving the results, search ignores some terms, including:
- Common words and characters, such as "where" and "how," when they are used in conjunction with other search terms
- Certain single digits and single letters
If a common word is essential to getting the results you want, you can include it by putting a plus ("+") sign in front of it. Include a space before the "+" sign, but not after it.
Alternatively, you can enclose a series of words with quotation marks and do a phrase search.
Sort By
By default, search results are sorted by relevance, with the most relevant result appearing at the top of the page. If you want to sort the documents by date instead, click the Sort by Date link.
Numbers
When you search for numbers, do not use exponential numbers, such as "1e10," or negative integers, such as "-12."
Numbers that are separated by commas are treated as separate figures, not fractional numbers; that is, the comma is treated as a term separator, not a decimal separator. For example, if you type "3,75", the search query is treated as a search for two separate terms, "3" and "75", not the decimal fraction, "three and three quarters." Commas that separate every three digits are ignored and are not necessary. For example, both "10,000" and "10000" are treated alike.