Search for Files by Name

Search is one of the most powerful features in Project Center. Advanced users can use it to find any of the following information in the current project or across several projects:

• Files by exact name (it will also find files by name within ZIP files);

• Files using a wildcard (asterisk) to find a name;

• Files by extension (such as .DWG);

Use asterisks (*) as a wildcard to replace text strings. Use question marks (?) as a wildcard to replace single characters.

To search for files by name, extension, or text string

1.     From any activity center in Project Center, enter the file name (or the file's extension) you are looking for in the Search field (located in the Toolbar at the top of Project Center). Scroll to the bottom of this topic for examples on how to use this feature.

2.     Click the drop-down arrow next to the Search button and choose the search option to use, then click Search, as shown here:

All files and project items containing the text string in are listed in the Search Results window.  

When searching filenames, search uses and (instead of or)as the parameter when using multiple search terms. For example, if you enter parking west in the Search field, only filenames that contain both terms will be returned (such as west_parking.dwg) instead of all files that contain either of those terms (west_lighting.dwg and parking_1.dwg would not be returned).

For information on how Search handles external references, see Search Overview.

3.     Optional: If too many files show up in the results list, apply search filters to narrow the results list to make it easier to locate the particular file you are looking for. From the Filter By list, select the filter you want to apply to the results list, as shown here:

The files that meet the filter conditions remain in the list. Files that do not are removed. You can also filter by column headers to use as many filters as necessary to narrow the list of results until you find the file you are looking for.

4.     When you find the file you want, you can select it from the list of results, and a preview of the file appears at the bottom for many supported file types. For example, if you're looking for a file with a .DWG extension, you can filter on that file type, select the file from the list, and preview it in the Preview tab. Double-click on the file to launch it in its native application.

Examples

To find all files named foundation, enter:

foundation.*

 

To find only a drawing (.DWG) file named foundation, enter:

foundation.dwg

 

To find files that have D as the first letter of the extension, followed by exactly two letters (such as .DWG, .DGN, .DOC, .DXF, .DWF, etc.), enter:

*.d??