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Differences Between Quick Search and Hit Highlighting

Last updated on 24 June 2022

Admin
M-Files Desktop

Overview

There are differences between what Quick Search returns and the Hit Highlighting that is performed.

Quick Search is the terms used when searching for documents from the M-Files Client.

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Hit Highlighting is when those words are highlighted in the search results, the metadata or the preview of the file. This highlighting does not follow the same rules a quick search even when using double quotes ( "). It will highlight all instances of the words used in the quick search terms regardless of location.

Graphical user interface, text, application, email  Description automatically generated

These are two entirely separate processes. Wrapping a search term in double quotes *will* return only those search results with those words in that order.

A quick example using the terms above is if we have two documents with

tiger purple pineapple

and the other has

purple tiger pineapple

in them. If a search is for "tiger purple pineapple", it will only return the first text document because that is the only document with those words in that order. What we are seeing with our search results is that Hit Highlighting will highlight every single word that is used in our search term no matter where it is or what order it's in or what other words are around it.

Please be aware that metadata also includes any comments made on documents as well so if we get some results for a quick search that do not look correct, make sure to check the comments section of the document/object.
 

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