Google Docs Search Tips: Find Your Documents Fast

Google Doc is Google’s web based Office application to create and share spreadsheets, documents, and presentations. In an effort to take on Microsoft’s Office, Google has been constantly improving Google Docs. Recently Google introduced Google Docs Drawing and made it easier to try Google Doc even without creating Google account.

The more one uses and creates documents, there is a more need to search the documents (what is is there not just the words in the title). There is more than one way to search the documents. Search being its forte, Google has added a few search operators to search the documents using the search box quickly. The search operators for Google Docs is similar to that of general Google search, so it is easy to learn. Here are the search operators to search Google Docs quickly.

Ten Tips and Tricks to Search Google Docs Quickly

1. To search for exact phrases use Quotes. Example: [ "find this exactly" ]
2. To search for one or more words in Google Docs use the operator “OR”. Example: [ "iPhone 4" or "iPad"]
3. To search for Google Docs without a specific word use the operator “-” before the word. Example: [ Apple -iPhone] will give the docs that mention “Apple”, but not “iPhone”
4. Google Doc enables collaboration by default. So you may want to search for docs created and shared by you or the docs shared with you. To search for docs that you shared use the operator “from”. Example: [from:you@gmail.com]. To search for docs shared with you by someone use the operator “to”. Example:[to:you@gmail.com]
5. To search for started or hidden docs use [ is:starred ] or [ is:hidden ]
6. To search based on the type of the doc use type:{document, spreadsheet, presentation}
7. To search for docs based on whether it was edited before or after a certain date use [ before:YYYY-MM-DD ] or [after:YYYY-MM-DD]
8. To search for docs based on who owns the doc use “owner”. Example [ owner:yourcollaborator]
9. To search for docs for keywords in the title use the operator “title”. Example: [ title:keyword]
10. To search for docs for keywords in the subject use the operator “subject”. Example: [ subject:keyword ]

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4. Tips to Search Smart Using Google- Part 3
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