Full Text Search Has Been Improved

What is changing?

We’ve said many times that Vanguard Cloud Search is a WORD search.  Much like Google.  But when it comes to Full Text Search, we’ve found that a PHRASE search works better.  So now when you preform a Full Text Search, if you enter two words, we’ll search for them as a PHRASE.

Here’s where you choose Full Text Search:

Full Text (OCR) search the contents of every document, not just the information that is indexed by the County Clerk.

So now if you enter:

                bexar county

We’ll search for those two words as a phrase.  In the past, to perform a phrase search you had to use quotes like this:

                “bexar county”

You can still search using a WORD search.  Just insert any of the Boolean keywords AND OR NOT.

So if you want bexar AND county but it’s not required that they be together as a PHRASE, just enter:

                bexar and county

To explain further, a PHRASE search for bexar county will find only “Bexar County”.  It won’t find “County of Bexar”.

A WORD search for bexar AND county will find BOTH “Bexar County” and “County of Bexar”.

Advanced Options

If you need more control, you can still use quotes along with Boolean keywords.  For example:

                “bexar county” AND clerk

Or for a practical example:

                “William Hurt” OR “Bill Hurt”

Why did we make this change?

As we’ve listened to your feedback, we’ve learned more about how you use search.  We’ve also looked at industry standards like Adobe.  We’ve noticed that while WORD searches work best for indexes, searching within documents seems to work better with PHRASE searches.

You’ll also notice for Full Text Search, we’ve added navigation controls to allow you to move within the documents from one match to the next.  This exciting new feature is also one you’ve been asking for.  It will greatly enhance your search experience.