# Searching a quote?



## Txiri

I ran across something today I wanted to compare to something else, and tried, tried, tried, to find it.

Can we no longer search for quotes?  I don't mean, citations, but snippets of another person's answer


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## conar

It works okay for me. For example, if I do a search for "but snippets of" (written like that, between quotation marks) then I get this thread as the only search result .


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## Txiri

That worked for me as well, but not in another forum.


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## conar

Ah, okay. I just tested it in the English/Spanish vocabulary forum and it seems to work fine. If it's in a different forum to that then maybe it's a software problem.


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## JamesM

I just did a search for "pinky-swear" (a recent thread in English Only that I thought would be unique) and found twelve threads in various forums that all contained "pinky-swear."  It looks like it's working.

Are you sure that what you are searching for does actually exist? You might try searching for something you know is there to test the search feature and then cut down your search that isn't working to the bare minimum.

Which forum are you experiencing the problem in?


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## Nunty

If you use the Forum Search instead of the Dictionary and Thread Title Search you can look for words and phrases in the body of a post. We recently added an explanation of that feature to the English Only guidelines, Searching the Forum.

Which feature are using for the search?


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## Txiri

Okay, thanks, well looking at_ this_ thread, at the top of the page, the line of options that starts with "My Threads" in yellow, and ends with "Log Out", next item is "Quick Links", and then, third from the right, "Search."  That's the one I've been trying to use.  

I had seen a thread in the English Spanish forum earlier in the day, which I responded to, which was asking a question about a text like a newsmagazine article, and later in the day, another thread, quoting the same article, but with much misspelling.  I just wanted to go back and look at both together:  it's so very unlikely to happen.


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## Nunty

OK, if you click on the word Search where you described it, you get a drop-down menu. Choose "Advanced Search" and use that form, choosing the "search entire posts" option and putting the phrase you are looking for inside "quotation marks".

Please let me know if that works.


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## Txiri

I'll get back to you on that and thanks.


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## Wilma_Sweden

Txiri said:


> I ran across something today I wanted to compare to something else, and tried, tried, tried, to find it.
> 
> Can we no longer search for quotes?  I don't mean, citations, but snippets of another person's answer


If you want to search specifically for posts containing quote boxes, you can go to advanced search and enter [quote as a search term - you don't need to enclose it in "-marks. In the Search Options, tick the option "Show results as posts". Unless you narrow down your search further, you will effectively get any and all posts that contain a quote box! 

If you can remember who was quoted, just add the exact user name also: 
[quote=Wilma_Sweden
This way, I can find all posts where someone has quoted things I've said! 

A great hint when searching is to always use the Advanced forum search option where you can specify "Any date" - I've found that sometimes searches are limited to "Last week" or some other time specifier.

/Wilma


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## Loob

That's clever, Wilma - I didn't know you could do that

So much to learn, so little time...


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