Help on AltaVista Personal 97
Welcome to AltaVista Personal 97 - a
personal productivity tool that searches the content of documents,
mail, and web files on a local disk or network connection. The
AltaVista (TM) Search family is a collection of full-featured
exploration products that index, search, and display local, departmental,
and enterprise-wide information resources.
AltaVista Search builds a compact, searchable personal index of every item
of data (string of characters) in almost every
file that your computer can read.
It searches the indexed information
for specific words and phrases, entered in a query. Simple and
advanced queries are created by entering a combination of words,
phrases, or keywords associated with the document type.
AltaVista Personal 97 displays the
results of a search by:
- Opening an application associated with the document type,
or,
- Opening a Quick Viewer to display the information.
By installing AltaVista Personal 97, the following updates
are made to the desktop environment.
A new directory is created
- The new directory contains the files necessary to run the
software. The software is installed in the chosen location during
the installation (typically in the C:\Program Files\Digital\AltaVista
Search directory). The following sub-directories are also created
in the installation directory:
- \db1 and \db2 contain the indexed files
- \images contains the gif images used for the buttons.
- \java contains files used by the java server.
AltaVista Search is added to the Windows 95 Task Bar
-
- Click the Start button, and point to Programs/AltaVista Search
or Find) to launch the software. The software is also launched
from Windows Explorer, by selecting the Find option in the Tools
pull-down menu.
AltaVista Indexer is added to the Windows 95 status tray
-
- Click the Start button, and point to Programs/AltaVista Search/Indexer
to launch the software. The Indexer is also launched from the
status tray to the right of Windows 95 Task Bar. To setup the
index, click the Indexer icon.
AltaVista Dispatcher is added to the Windows 95 status tray
-
- Click the Dispatcher icon for more information.
Removing the software
-
- Click the Start button, and point to Settings, then Control
Panel, and click on Add/Remove Programs to remove the software.
-
- AltaVista Personal 97 Indexer is a Windows application that
captures data on local or network drives simply and comprehensively.
The Indexer is visible in the Windows task bar or status tray, and
provides the following features:
Index Setup
-
- The index setup is customizable to your personal computer. To change
your index settings, open the Indexer from the task bar or status tray.
Folder Options
-
- Use the Configure button on the Indexer to select the information sources
to include in the index. The options include Documents, Exchange Mail,
Eudora Mail, Internet Explorer Mail, Netscape Mail, and Netscape Cache.
Schedule indexing
-
- Use the Schedule tab on the Indexer to set a day and time for building
an index. Optionally, use the System Agent application to run the Indexer.
For more details, see the Indexer help.
File Options
-
- AltaVista Personal 97 supports the most commonly used
word processing document formats. Click the File Types button on the
Documents tab in the Indexer to select the files to include in the index.
Internet setup
-
- Click the "Configuration Page" link on the AltaVista
Personal 97 home page to set-up proxy server settings for internet
searches.
-
- AltaVista Personal 97 ensures complete coverage of
desktop information sources.
Local disk
-
- You can include any folder, directory, or sub-directory on
your hard disk in the index setup.
Network drives
-
- The index setup can contain any network drive, including folders,
directories, and sub-directories.
Mail
-
- The index setup can contain Microsoft Exchange Mail, Eudora
Mail, Internet Explorer Mail, and Netscape Mail.
Document formats
-
- The Indexer supports the most common document formats, including
Microsoft Word documents, Excel spreadsheet documents, Powerpoint
documents, plain text, PDF, and Postscript.
World Wide Web
-
- The AltaVista search services, including the global index
of web pages, can be searched.
-
- AltaVista Personal 97 provides powerful search options,
allowing simple and advanced searches.
Simple Search
-
- Use the Simple Search button to create a simple query. You
can search for a word or phrase, or a combination of words and
phrases. You can also confine the query to a specific part of
the index source (for example, My Computer Mail, or My Computer
Documents), or send it to the internet.
Advanced Search
-
- Use the Advanced Search button to create a detailed query.
This option allows you to search for a word or phrase, or a combination
of words and phrases, using the AND, OR, NEAR, and NOT syntax.
You can also use the Advanced Search button to:
- Combine words or phrases using parenthesis ()
- Enter a Start Date or End Date.
- Enter ranking words so documents containing the words selected
are listed first.
- Enter Keywords to refine a search.
Words
-
- A word means any string of letters and digits delimited either
by punctuation and other non-alphabetic characters (for example,
&, %, $, /, #, _, ~), or by white space (spaces, tabs, line
ends, start of document, end of document).
Phrases
-
- A phrase is any string of adjacent words, although they may
be separated by any amount of white space or punctuation. The
preferred way to link words into a phrase is to use quotation
marks.
Keywords
-
- Keywords refine Advanced Searches. Some are used with personal
documents (for example, author, location, title, or subject).
To filter internet searching, use the following keywords (anchor,
applet, host, image, link, text, url).
Proximity (wildcards)
-
- Use wildcards to search for occurrences of any of a family
of several related words, such as sing, singer, singing. The *
notation is placed at the end of the word you want to inflect
(for example, sing*).
-
- AltaVista Personal 97 provides several options for
displaying search results.
Fast View
-
- Outside In Quick View opens the retrieved documents much faster
than the application associated with that document. Most document
formats are supported and copy, paste, and print features are
available.
Open in associated application
-
- Double-click on retrieved documents to open them in their
associated application. The functionality of the associated application
is available (this does not apply to Eudora or Microsoft Exchange
mail).
Ranking search results
-
- Retrieved document are ranked by the number of occurrences
of the word or phrase.
-
-
- Click the AltaVista Indexer icon in the Windows 95 status
tray, or select the Indexer from the Windows 95 Task Bar.
- Click the Help button to display Indexer help.
-
-
- Click the AltaVista icon, or click on the "Configuration
Page" link on the AltaVista Personal 97 home page to load
the configuration page.
- Click the Help button on the Configuration Page for more information
on changing internet settings.
Both the simple and advanced search functions use the same syntax
rules regarding phrasing, case sensitivity, and finding related
words.
AltaVista Search defines a word as any string of letters and digits
that is separated by either
- White space, such as spaces, tabs, line ends, or the start
or end of a document, or
- Special characters and punctuation, such as %, $, /, #, and
_
-
- For example, AltaVista Search interprets and indexes HAL5000,
60258, www, http, and EasierSaidThanDone all as single words,
because they are continuous strings of characters, surrounded
by characters that are neither letters nor digits. The software
indexes all words that it finds, regardless of whether the word
exists in a dictionary or is spelled correctly.
Searching for Phrases
You can use AltaVista Search to find phrases, or groups of related
words that appear next to each other. To indicate a phrase in
a search query, enclose the words with double quotes. Phrasing
ensures that AltaVista Search finds the words together, instead
of looking for separate instances of each word individually. For
example, to look for the phrase personnel policies, type
"personnel policies"
If you did not use the double quotes, AltaVista Search would find
instances of "personnel" alone and "policies"
alone, as well as any instances where the two words happen to
appear together. Enclosing the words in quotes indicates that
you want to find only instances of both words together.
Punctuation
AltaVista Search ignores punctuation except to interpret it as
a separator for words. Placing punctuation or special characters
between each word, with no spaces between the characters and the
words, is also a way to indicate a phrase. As an example of when
punctuation might be useful in indicating a phrase, consider searching
for a telephone number. Entering
1-800-555-1212
is easier than entering "1 800 555 1212", which is an
equally acceptable syntax, but is less natural. Hyphenated words,
such as CD-ROM, also automatically form a phrase because of the
hyphen.
Normally, however, using double quotes to indicate a phrase is
recommended over the use of punctuation between words, because
some special characters have additional meaning:
- In both simple and advanced searches, you can use the asterisk
(*) as a wildcard indicating that you want to find all words containing
a match for the specified pattern of letters.
- The + and - characters are operators that help to filter the
results of a simple search.
- The &, |, ~, and ! characters are operators that help
to filter the results of an advanced search.
Case sensitivity of a search is based on the case in which you
enter your query.
- A query in all lowercase letters results in a case-insensitive
search.
For example, if you enter turkey in the query field, AltaVista
Search will find all occurrences of the word turkey, including
those spelled TUrkey, TURKEY, turkey, and so forth.
- If your query contains any uppercase letters, the search is
case-sensitive.
For example, if you enter Turkey in the query field, AltaVista
Search will find all occurrences of Turkey with initial capitalization
only. It will not return documents containing the words TURKEY
or turkey.
AltaVista Search supports exact-match searches for characters
in the ISO Latin-1 character set. That is, you can enter a word
containing an accent or other diacritical mark, and AltaVista
Search will find only documents with the accented spelling of
the word.
For example, if you search for the French word éléphant,
AltaVista Search will find only documents containing an exact
match for the French spelling of the word.
Entering a word with mixed case and an accent, (for example, Éléphant)
would produce only results that match the word in terms of both
case and accent.
If you omit accents and other diacritical marks from a search
query, AltaVista Search finds documents containing words both
with and without the special marks. Although this feature might
produce some irrelevant results for users doing an English language
search, it enables users to enter queries for non-English words
even when they do not have international support on their keyboard.
To support searching for special characters without their diacritical
marks, AltaVista search makes a mapping to the closest possible
plain character or combination of characters. The software then
indexes words in both forms: with special characters as they appear,
and also with special characters replaced by the mappings. The
following table illustrates the special characters and their mappings:
| Character(s) | Mapping
| Character(s) | Mapping
|
|---|
| Æ | AE | æ
| ae |
| Á Â À Å Ã Ä
| A | á â à å ã ä
| a |
| Ç | C | ç
| c |
| Ð | D | ð
| d |
| É Ê È Ë | E
| é ê è ë | e
|
| Í Î Ì Ï | I
| í î ì ï | i
|
| Ñ | N | ñ
| n |
| Ó Ô Ò Ø Õ Ö
| O | ó ô ò ø õ ö
| o |
| Þ | TH | þ
| th |
| Ú Û Ù Ü | U
| ú û ù ü | u
|
| Ý | Y | ý ÿ
| y |
| ß | ss |
| |
You can use the asterisk wildcard notation ( * ) to search for
a group of words that contain the same pattern. This is convenient
for finding derivatives and spelling variants of the same word.
For example, to look for the word sing and any derivatives,
such as singer, singers, and singing, enter sing* in the
query field. Searching for cantalo* will produce matches
for cantaloup, cantaloupe, cantalope, and their plurals.
Notes
- A wildcard search can produce words that match the pattern
of your query but are unrelated to what you are looking for. It
is sometimes possible to change the placement of the wildcard
character to reduce the number of irrelevant results. For example,
if you want to find matches for both color and colour, a query
of the form col*r could also find matches for the words
collector and collider. Submitting a query for colo*r is
more precise, and results in matches for both color and colour.
- To limit extraneous searching, AltaVista Search requires that
you specify at least three letters in front of the * notation.
Also, the wildcard matches only lower-case characters (not capital
letters or digits), and interchanges with a maximum of five letters.
- If your search notation results in matches that are too numerous
to be meaningful, AltaVista Search displays a message similar
to the following:
Ignored inte*: 4292323
The example message indicates that there are more than four
million instances in the index of words starting with "inte".
Consequently, AltaVista Search does not return any results, because
the query is not specific enough to be useful.
Both the simple and advanced search interfaces are equally powerful,
flexible, and easy to use.
Advantages of Simple Search
The main advantages of the simple search interface are
- AltaVista Search ranks results automatically based on a series
of factors that ensure that the most relevant documents appear
at the top of the results list. For details on how ranking works,
see How the Results are Ordered.
- You can use a conversational style to enter queries. Entering
several words separated by spaces indicates that you want to find
documents containing any or all of the words (documents containing
all of the words will be listed first).
For example, suppose you want to find a recipe for muffins that
includes either apples or pears, but ideally would contain both
fruits. You could enter the series of words apple pear muffin
recipe. If any document contains all four words, automatic
ranking places that document at the top of your results list.
Documents containing only some of the words would be next, and
documents containing only one of the words would be ranked last.
- You can enter a query in the form of a question: for example,
What is the company policy on vacation leave? and AltaVista
Search sorts out the most important words in the phrase and returns
a list of documents containing those words.
- You can use the + and - symbols as simple operators that require
the presence or absence words in a search (for details, see Doing a Simple Search).
Advantages of Advanced Search
The advanced search interface requires a more precise, logical
syntax which, although it is more exacting, also gives you more
control over the results of your search. Using the apple pear
muffin recipe example, suppose you decide that you do not want
to see any documents unless they contain at least the words muffin
and recipe. In advanced search syntax, a more precise rendition
of the simple query would be (apple OR pear) AND muffin AND
recipe.
You can optionally enter your own ranking rules in the advanced
search interface. If you do not enter any ranking rules, AltaVista
returns the results in no particular order.
Although the two interfaces offer basically the same features,
advanced search does offer some capabilities that are not available
with the simple search:
- You can use the NEAR operator to find two words located within
10 words of each other.
- You can confine your search to documents from a specific time
period.
- You can get a count of the number of documents that meet your
search criteria. This is useful, for example, if you want to get
an idea of how many web pages contain links to your own home page.
For additional information on using the advanced search interface,
see Doing an Advanced Search.
Simple searches use general syntax rules
regarding phrasing, case sensitivity, and use of the asterisk
(*) as a wildcard character. In addition, two operators can help
to narrow a simple search:
| This Operator | Does This
|
|---|
| + | includes only documents containing all specified words or phrases in the search results
|
| - | excludes documents containing the specified word or phrase from the search results
|
Specify the operator in front of the word that you want to include
or exclude, with no spaces between the operator and the word.
To find the documents most relevant to your needs, construct your
query as precisely as you can.
- To increase the likelihood that the most relevant documents
will appear at the top of the list, enter several synonyms for
the topic for which you are searching.
Example: Querying for sandals leather footwear instead
of just one of those words increases the chance of finding documents
about leather sandals.
- Use quotation marks to group several words into a phrase.
Example: bicycle "for sale" finds documents
that contain both the phrase for sale and the word bicycle.
- Use the wildcard notation (*) at the end of a word stem to
find related words.
Example: quilt* finds the words quilts, quilter,
quilting, and quilted.
- Use the + and - operators to further refine your search.
Example: noir +film -"pinot noir" finds
documents containing both noir and film but not
the phrase pinot noir.
AltaVista ranks the results of a search based on a score that
includes these criteria:
- Whether the words or phrases are found in the first few lines
of the document (for example, in the title of a web page).
- The frequency of occurrence of a query word or phrase. Rare
words in a query are weighted more heavily than common words (rarity
is determined by the number of occurrences of the word in the
index).
- Whether all of the specified words or phrases appear in a
document. A document containing all three words specified in a
three-word query would rank higher than a document containing
only two or one of the words.
- Whether multiple query words or phrases are found close to
each other in a document.
If you are not happy with the documents that AltaVista ranks first
as the result of a search, you might need to narrow the scope
of your search.
Advanced queries use the same general syntax rules
as simple queries, but they offer more options for refining a
search based on operators and expressions. With the advanced query
feature, you have more control over the results of your search,
and you also have to be more precise in order to get the results
that you want.
You can group words into phrases as you would do for a simple
search. However, you must use an operator to combine several words
or phrases in the same search. The advanced search operators are
as follows:
| Keyword | Symbol
| Action |
|---|
| AND | & | Finds only documents containing all of the specified words or phrases.
|
| OR | | | Finds documents containing at least one of the specified words or phrases.
|
| NOT | ! | Excludes documents containing the specified word or phrase.
|
| NEAR | ~ | Finds documents containing both specified words or phrases within 10 words of each other.
|
You can enter the keywords in all uppercase or all lowercase.
Using uppercase is a convenient way to distinguish the keywords
from words that are part of your search. Entering symbols instead
of keywords is also an option, although it can make the query
more cryptic and less conversational.
Notes
- If you need to use a word such as OR or NEAR in a query, enclose
the word in double quotes to distinguish it from the keyword of
the same name. For example, you could enter Portland AND (Oregon
OR "OR") to look for either Oregon or its
postal service abbreviation.
- AltaVista Search follows a default order of precedence (near,
not, and, or) for interpreting a query that has several operators.
For complex queries, however, it is recommended that you use parentheses
to indicate the order in which you want the search engine to interpret
the operators.
- The simple search operators (+ and -) are interpreted as punctuation,
not logical operators, in advanced queries.
The following examples illustrate how to use operators and parentheses
to construct an advanced search query.
- (apple OR pear) AND (tart OR pie)
- This query requests that either of the words apple
or pear appear in the same document with either of the
words tart or pie.
- John NEAR Kennedy
- The operator NEAR ensures that both John and Kennedy
are within ten words of each other in any document resulting from
the search. The NEAR operator is often useful in searching for
names because of the possible different forms that the name can
take. The example query would find all of John Kennedy;
Kennedy, John; John Fitzgerald Kennedy; and John
F. Kennedy.
- vegetable AND (NOT broccoli)
- The operators AND NOT ensure that documents found contain
the word vegetable but not the word broccoli.
Note that the syntax vegetable NOT broccoli (without the
AND) returns a syntax error. When NOT appears in a position other
than the beginning of a query, use AND to connect the NOT portion
with the rest of the query. (OR NOT is also valid syntax, but
would probably return more results than would be useful in most
cases).
Unlike with simple searches, AltaVista Search returns the results
of an advanced query in no particular order, unless you specify
ranking rules. An example of when you might not want to rank results
is when you are doing a search of all web pages that contain links
to your home page, and you want to display the results as a count
only. For a count, only the number, and not the ordering of the
results, is significant.
In most cases, though, you will want to filter the results of
your search so that the most useful documents appear at the top
of the list. To rank results, enter words or phrases in the Ranking
field. Use spaces to separate multiple words or phrases. You can
use the words that are a part of your query, or you can enter
new words as an additional way to refine your search. For example,
you could further narrow a search for COBOL AND programming
by entering advanced and experienced in the Ranking
field.
Ranking also limits your ability to view the search results to
the top 200 documents. Because ranking naturally gives priority
to documents that best meet the search criteria, 200 documents
should be a sufficient number to provide you with the most useful
information. For details about the factors that influence ranking,
see How the Results are Ordered.
You can confine your search to a particular time period by entering
dates in the Start Date: and End Date: fields at the bottom of
the advanced search screen. AltaVista Search finds matches for
the specified time frame based on the time that the web page was
last modified. Note that the software gets this information from
the web server where the page exists; it may not always be accurate.
Enter the date in the format dd/mmm/yy where dd
is the day of the month, mmm is an abbreviation for the
name of the month, and yy is the last two digits of the
year. Be sure to use the name of the month instead of a number;
this eliminates ambiguity between date formats in different countries.
For example:
09/jan/96
If you omit the year, the search assumes the date is in the current
year. If you omit both the year and the month and specify only
numbers for days, the search assumes the current month and year.
For example, entering a Start date of 09/jan indicates
that you want documents dated no earlier than January 9 of the
current year. Entering a start date of 09 indicates that
you want documents dated no earlier than the ninth day of the
current month in the current year.
On both the simple search and advanced search screens, you can
choose from a number of options for formatting the results of
a search for display.
| This Format | Does This
|
|---|
| In Standard Form | Displays a hot link to the title and the URL of each document; the first several lines of the document; the size; and the date the document was posted to the web.
|
| In Compact Form | Displays a hot link to the title of each document; the date posted; and the first several words. The information about each document fits on one line.
|
| As a Count | Displays the total number of documents that match the search, without any additional information. This option is available only from the advanced search screen.
|
Notes
- AltaVista Search divides the search results into sets of listings
for display. You can click on a number at the bottom of the page,
or click on the Next or Previous jump, to display a new set of
listings.
- If you are doing a simple search, or if you do an advanced
search with ranking, AltaVista Search displays a maximum of 200
listings regardless of how many documents it found that matched
the search criteria. For information about how AltaVista Search
chooses the documents to display first, see How the Results are Ordered.
Both the simple and advanced search interfaces support the use
of keywords to restrict your searches to pages that meet specific
criteria regarding the structure and contents of a web page. Using
keywords, you can search based on a URL or portion of a URL, or
based on the links, art, text, and coding that a web page contains.
With keywords, you can do useful things such as
- Find all pages on a certain host or in
a specific naming domain.
- Find all pages that contain links pointing
to your own web page.
- Find all pages that contain a specific class of Java applets.
To search based on keywords, enter a query in the format keyword:search-criteria
where:
- keyword is any of a list of special items for which
AltaVista can find (see below)
- search-criteria is the string or condition that you
want to match.
You must enter the keyword in lowercase, followed immediately
by a colon. The conventions for specifying a phrase in the search
criteria are the same as for specifying a phrase in a regular
query; the most convenient method is to enclose the phrase in
double quotes.
The following tables describe the keywords that AltaVista Personal 97
supports:
Documents/Files
| Keyword | Contains |
|---|
| title |
The name of the file |
| location |
Full path name, including file name |
| extension |
File extension |
Exchange Mail/OutLook Mail
| Keyword | Contains |
|---|
| author |
Same as "from" |
| cc |
Mail addresses from CC field |
| conversation |
Subject of post conversation |
| custom |
All custom defined properties |
| from |
Mail address of originator |
| location |
Folder in which the mail message is stored |
| recipient |
Same as "to" |
| subject |
Contents of the subject line |
| title |
Same as "subject" |
| to |
Mail address from the TO field |
| topic |
Same as conversation |
Netscape Mail/Internet Explorer Mail/Eudora Mail
| Keyword | Contains |
|---|
| author |
Same as "from" |
| cc |
Mail addresses from CC field |
| from |
Mail address of originator |
| location |
Folder in which the mail message is stored |
| subject |
Contents of the subject line |
| title |
Same as "subject" |
| to |
Mail address from the TO field |
Netscape Cache
| Keyword | Contains |
|---|
| title |
Contents of the TITLE HTML tag |
| location |
Full path name of cached file concatenated with it's associated URL |
The url, host, and domain keywords all serve
a similar purpose in that they search for URLs based on a specific
portion of the URL itself, or on the hostname or domain name where
the web page exists.
The link and anchor keywords are similar in that
they both look for information about jumps. The link keyword
looks for text in a URL that is the target of a jump (for example,
https://www.abc.org/help.html), whereas the anchor keyword
looks for the actual text of a hyperlink as users would see it
on a web page (for example, click here).
The text and title tags both search for the contents
of a document itself. The text keyword finds any visible
text (other than tags, links, and URLs) within a document, whereas
the title keyword restricts the search to text that the
document's author coded as part of the <title> tag. The
title is what appears in the window banner of your web browser.
The title keyword can be a good way to hone your search
to only the most significant pages about a topic.
Note that, in the Advanced search interface, you can enter a logical
expression (containing any combination of the AND, OR, NEAR and
NOT operators) as the search criteria. For example, if you want
to find a web page whose title contains both the words spreadsheet
and training, you could enter a query in the form
title:(spreadsheet AND training)
For additional information on advanced search operators, see Doing an Advanced Search.
Examples
- url:https://host1.myagency.org/volunteer
- Finds all pages with the words https://host1.myagency.org/volunteer/
in the URL (the result is a listing of pages advertising volunteer
opportunities in the Myagency organization).
- host:host1.myagency
- Matches pages with host1.myagency in the
hostname of the Web server.
- domain:org
- Matches pages with the domain name org in
the hostname of the Web server.
- image:demo_screens.jpg
- Matches pages that contain an image tag with a reference to
demo_screens.jpg.
- anchor:"click here"
- Matches pages with the phrase click here
in the text of a hyperlink.
- link:https://www.abc.org/mypage.html
- Matches pages that contain at least one link to a page with
the URL https://www.abc.org/mypage.html.
- link:https://myhost.abc.org/mypage.html -host:myhost.abc.org
- Finds only external pages containing links to the specified
URL (the - operator eliminates pages on the same web server as
the page of interest).
- text:training
- Matches pages that contain the word training
in any part of the visible text of a page (not in a hyperlink
or image tag.)
- title:"The Wall Street Journal"
- Matches pages with the phrase The Wall Street Journal
in the title.
- applet:NervousText
- Matches pages containing the Java applet class named NervousText.
- author:Fred Flintstone
- Matches mail or documents with the author Fred Flintstone
entered as the author.
- location:"c:\My Documents"
- Matches documents in the locations C:\My Documents.
- subject:altavista
- Matches mail messages with the word altavista
in the title.
AltaVista Personal 97 displays a list of retrieved items
that match the query. To view and use the search results:
- Click on the title of the document to view it in its native
application (for example: Microsoft Word for .doc files).
- Click on the path of a file to launch the Outside In Quick
Viewer.
Note:
-
- The Outside In Quick Viewer must be installed to view files.
If Quick View is not available, either your program doesn't support
it, or it is not installed on your computer. Quick View is an
installable Windows component.
- Click on the path of a file in the list of files found.
- The Outside In Quick Viewer displays the document containing
the word or phrase.
Note:
-
- The Outside In Quick Viewer must be installed to view files.
If Quick View is not available, either your program doesn't support
it, or it is not installed on your computer. Quick View is an
installable Windows component.
Managing passwords
- Click the checkbox to save passwords when you first log-in. If you do not, every time you try to open personal mail in a Microsoft Exchange mail folder, you will be prompted for your password.
Displaying results
- Surprised by the number of results returned? Remember AltaVista Search counts every single word in your query, but displays the best results first.
- If you are expecting AltaVista Search to return many results, try displaying the results in Compact Form.
Changing index settings
- If you want to change index settings, click on the indexer icon in the task bar.
Using combinations of words
- To ensure all combinations of words are included in your query, consider alternate representations of words: television TV.
- To find related words in a query, it is a good idea to enter synonyms: flu influenza virus
Using upper-case and lower-case letters
- Entering a query with upper-case letters matches only words with that spelling. Paris matches Paris, but not paris or PARIS.
- Enter lower-case words to match any case: tokyo matches Tokyo, TOKYO, tokyo, ToKyo.
Finding words with special characters
- If you are unsure about entering special characters in your query, just omit the characters: �l�phant also matches elephant.
- To find words in your native language, try entering the special characters in your query. For example, enter F�ilte for an Irish welcome.
Finding a phrase
- To find a phrase, use double quotes: "Santa Claus", or use punctuation with no space between the words: deja-vu.
Using + and - in searches
- To ensure a word is present in a document, add a plus sign: +noir+film
- To ensure a word is not present in a document, enter a minus sign. For example, +pinot+noir-"pinot noir"
Finding a family of words
- To find a family of words in one query, use the * notation. For example, colo*r matches color and colour. The query invest* matches words like invest, investor, investors, investment, and investing.
Limiting your search
- To limit your search to local documents, try selecting My Computer Documents from the drop-down menu labeled Search.
- To search for information in your mail messages, try selecting My Computer Mail from the same menu.
Refining a search
- To refine a search, try entering a keyword. See the Help on Search for examples.
I know a mail in my Exchange folder matches my query, but
AltaVista Personal 97 did not find it. Why not?
-
- The following reasons may explain why AltaVista did not find
the mail, file, document, or web page:
- The message you are looking for is new. AltaVista searches
local and shared resources for new message to add to its index,
but it is likely that it will not find a brand new message if
the index has not been recently rebuilt.
- The message or document may have security restrictions. For
example, the message may be protected behind a gateway or firewall.
Some documents are on corporate servers that are not publicly
accessible, and AltaVista does not attempt to access them.
AltaVista Personal 97 found a page I wanted to look
at, but when I attempted to retrieve it, I got an error. Why?
-
- This can occur when the status of the file, message, or the
server it is on, has changed since AltaVista last retrieved and
indexed it.
- The page may have been renamed or removed by the owner.
- The network drive may be down at the moment.
- Access restrictions may have been introduced at the network
location since AltaVista retrieved the page.
- The network location may be so overloaded that attempts to
connect to it time out.
AltaVista Personal 97 found some files that do not
match my query. Why?
-
- AltaVista indexes the contents of a document as of the day
it finds it, or at the time setup for an index build. It is possible
that the owner of the document has made some modifications since
AltaVista retrieved and indexed it. Even though the original document
matched the query, the new version might not. When AltaVista finds
a document that does not appear to match the query, the most likely
explanation is that it does indeed match, but in some way that
is not very obvious. For example:
- Words and phrases in a simple query need not all be present
in a document to be considered a match; only one is required.
Otherwise they only affect the order in which those documents
are presented to you.
- Punctuation in a query and in a document are both generally
treated as white space for matching purposes; also, lower case
letters in the query are generally considered as matching the
corresponding upper case letters as well. So, the simple query
"John Smith", intended to look for references to this
person, will match a document that by chance contains the phrase
"John. Smith", i.e. a phrase with John at the end of
one sentence, and Smith at the beginning of the next.
After installing, I tried to find a phrase that I know is
in a document on my hard disk. Why did AltaVista not find it?
-
- This can occur if you have not built an index of the files
on your hard disk. Remember, AltaVista Personal 97 needs
to have an index created before it can find the phrase.
- Click on the index icon in the Windows 95 tray, or select
the Indexer from the taskbar.
- Add your hard disk to the index source, and build the index.
If you have any problems with this software, or want to provide
feedback or comments, the following support services are available.
Internet Support
-
- The AltaVista Personal 97 Support forum has been set-up to
gather feedback, and is at the following location.
Click on Support at this location to get technical support information.
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- [ Table of Contents]