Full-Text Search in Scripture Notes
Scripture Notes supports full-text search features. Unlike some products that only let you search for a single word, you can do advanced searches of the scriptures with Scripture Notes. This gives you incredible power in doing searches. I will first list your modifiers and then give some specific examples.
Search Modifiers
Modifier | What it does |
|---|---|
+ / AND | Words on both sides of the + or AND must both be present. Either a + or "and" can be used, as well as neither. Searching for two words without a modified between them will perform an AND search. |
OR | Either word on either side of the OR can be present |
- (NOT) | A word to the right of the minus sign must not be present. |
* | Wildcard character to find multiple endings to a word. Tip: reduce words to the level you want to search from. For example, searching for strive* will find strive and strives, but removing the "e" and searching for striv* will also find striving. |
( ) | Parenthesis treat a set of commands as a group |
" " | Double quotation marks around words return an exact phrase match |
Search Examples
For purposes of creating examples, I will capitalize the modifiers, but you can use all lower case when actually doing searches.
Search Text | What it finds |
|---|---|
Eye AND Single Eye +Single Eye Single | All verses where both "eye" and "single" are in the verse |
Eye OR Single | All verses where either "eye" or "single" appear. This is the largest set because either word must be present but not requiring the other. |
Eye -Single | "Eye" must be present in the verse and "single" must not be present. To remove additional words just keep adding additional hyphens and words. |
"milk and honey" | Quote marks make what's inside exact so the "and" doesn't function like the modified AND, and only find verses where both milk and honey both appear. The quotes mean it will only return this exact phrase. |
Oft* | All verses with words that start "oft" such as oft, often, ofttimes, oftentimes, and oftener. I suggest using the wildcard often. :) |
"How oft*" | Wildcards can be used inside quotes. In this instance all exact phrases will be found such as "how oft" and "how often". |
wait* AND (Lord OR God ) | Parenthesis ensure items are treated together just like in math operations. Finds all verses where "wait" or "waits" or "waiting" is found, and either the word "Lord" or "God" is present as well. Very handy when you want to find matchups of words but one word might vary. |
Taxes OR tribute OR custom AND land | A tricky mess. This is not a good search unless you mean to find verses that contain the word "taxes," or "tribute," or a combination of "custom" and "land." The AND modifier at the end will only attach to the word 'custom.' |
(Taxes OR tribute OR custom) AND land Also (Taxes OR tribute OR custom) land | This is the correct way to search for multiple meanings. One of the first 3 words must be present AND land must be present as well. |
Just* -"just" -"justice" | Find all words that start with "just" like justify, justified, justification, but exclude "just" and "justice". This could also be written: Just* -("just" or "justice") In a search pane, if you discover a word you don't want to include results for, just edit the search at the top of the pane and have that word removed. One warning, if you have removed verses from your search, redoing the search will add them back in. |
Searching for hyphenated words like Lehi-Nephi, or two-edged | The hyphen removes words immediately following the hyphen. To do a search for a hyphenated word, simply search for the term without the hyphen such as: two edged |
I would like to search in isaiah without searching the whole bible.
Hi Richard, you can do that easily. On the search screen there is a filter button. You can set it to search either the KJV of Isaiah in the Old Testament, or the Isaiah Institute translation by Avraham Gileadi if you add that to your library using the Manage button at the top of the library view.
Love the app! Is it possible to identify proper nouns in search…e.g. “Being” in reference to a name given to the Savior, rather than “being” as a present participle: “they were being rude”? There doesn’t seem to be a way to recognize capital letters.
Thank you!
Hi Derek, we don’t actually support that proper capitalization feature in search at this time.
Why doesn’t this work?
endure ( to OR unto ) the end
Hi Dave, it’s because it’s seeing that as one string. You need “and” to join elements. Try this.
endure and (to OR unto) and the end
I would like the word I search for to be highlighted in all the scriptures found in the search. I have seen you cause that to happen, but you don’t really show what you are doing in the training.
Hi Wayne, that’s a function of your browser, not our app. Just press ctrl-F or cmd-F (Mac) and do a find on the page for the word or part of the word you want to see highlighted.
I thought i saw someone saying there is a way to voice in comments instead of typing them in? I have a work around dictating to Word and then pasting but wondered if that was included in your program voicing or dictating
Hi Doug, that’s mostly an operating system feature. You can dictate into a field on your cell phone by pressing the microphone button on your keyboard, and both iOS and Windows support speech to text in input fields.