Searching in the Board

Searching in the Board

It turns out that online help is not for wimps, nor is searching online help. The forums at MrExcel.com are not only interactive Q&A forums, but also serve as a searchable Database of problem/solution sets.

Knowing how to search for a problem/solution set might lead you to an array of potential solutions without even having to ask a question!

There are two main methods of searching the forums.

• Google search
• Built-in forum search

Google Search

It’s fast and robust. The trick is to make the search site specific, you can do this by adding site:mrexcel.com at the beginning of your search. Here’s the starting point:

• site:MrExcel.com - Google Search

And here are your ‘Advanced Search’ options:

• site:MrExcel.com - Advanced Google Search

And note, the domain is populated for you, here.

Google Search Tips:

• If searching for phrases, include them in "double quotes"
• Words that must be included in search results should be preceded by a + sign. eg +formula
• Words that must be excluded from search results should be preceded by a - sign. eg -macro

Now, we’ll look at a few examples.

First, here’s a general Google search on the Forums, here, on conditional formatting, (this is how you would enter the search in the Google search bar):

• site:mrexcel.com "conditional formatting" "more than 3 colors"

In this example, we have searched MrExcel.com for the phrases "conditional formatting" and "more than 3 colors". Click here to see the search results.

Second, we’ll look at a user-specific search. In Google, search on:

• site:mrexcel.com NateO Byte Ubound

In this example, we have searched MrExcel.com for NateO, Byte and Ubound. Click here to see the search results.

Also note that signatures work as well, e.g., Nate Oliver is a viable search, as seen in the following example:

• site:mrexcel.com Nate Oliver Byte Ubound

There are at least two possible limitations to this:

• Google might not have cached a useful post, yet.
• The search results don’t appear to be sorted, in any way, let alone by date. For this, we’ll turn to the built-in search functionality.

Built-in Forum Search

Click Search button on the top right corner of the page to make a search.

Or you can use Advanced Search for more options.

Once on that page you should find lots of options to help refine your search.

Sent by NateO (Legend) on Nov 20th, 2005