Search Tips
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How do I find what I'm looking for?
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Our search can be accessed through any page of our site.
Search textbox is located at the top right corner of the every page.
Simply enter the text you would like to search for and click the gray button:
The search functionality supports searching for one or more specific
words and/or phrases. A word is one or more characters without spaces or
punctuation while a valid phrase can consist of multiple words with spaces
or punctuation between them. For example, 'MSDN' is a word while
'MSDN Universal 7.0' is a phrase.
The search phrase can combine multiple words by using
the Boolean operators 'AND' and 'OR' to enhance your search.
Furthermore, words can be negated by the use of the
'AND NOT' Boolean operator. These Boolean operators generally adhere to the following rules:
- NOT is applied before AND
- NOT can only occur after AND, as in AND NOT. The OR NOT operator is not allowed.
- NOT cannot be specified before the first term
- AND is applied before OR
Boolean operators of the same type (AND, OR) are associative and can therefore be applied in any order.
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What are my search options?
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Our Search allows you to search the following type of product information:
- Manufacturer/Publisher name
- Product Description
- Manufacturer Part Number
- Part Number
- Category
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Does your search recognize punctuation or special characters?
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Our search doesn't recognize special characters such as exclamation points,
question marks, or the @ sign. These types of characters are so common that
including them in a search would greatly slow the delivery of the search results.
Additionally, the use of punctuation on the web is so inconsistent that including
it in the query often does more harm than good to the relevance of your search results.
While we don't currently offer a way to force our search to recognize
all special characters, we understand that many useful search terms do
contain such characters, therefore, we have exceptions such as C++.
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Do you support wildcard searches?
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A wildcard in a search query can be indicated by an asterisk (*) and
will match one or more entire words of text so that the query matches
a contiguous sequence of words.
A wildcard is automatically added to the end of all alphanumeric
and numeric search terms that you enter. For example, a search
term like “Component” will automatically have a wildcard added to the
end of it, resulting in a search for “Component*”. The search results
would include products with “Component”, “ComponentA”, “ComponentB”,
“ComponentC”, etc. in their product descriptions.
Use an asterisk (“*”) to add a wildcard to your keyword search terms.
For example, a search for the term “Comp*” will display all results
that start with “Comp” or a search for the term "*zip" will display
all results that end with "zip" like "winzip". We do not support wildcard
search in the middle of the word.
If you would like to disable wildcarding, simply place
quotation marks around the search terms
that you do not want wildcarded.
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How can I find products by manufacturer?
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One method to locate products by manufacturer is to visit the partner
pages by accessing the BRANDS link in the left side navigation
under the PRODUCTS heading. Once the cursor is placed over this
link a list of premier partners will display to the immediate right.
Clicking on these manufacturers will display that manufacturer's
specific partner page that includes information about new releases,
featured products, and etc. From here links exist that will display
products lines for that specific brand.
Another method to see a listing of all products for a manufacturer
is to click on the manufacturer name link on either the product page
or the result pages (category navigation/search results).
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Is there a category search?
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Across the main horizontal navigation, each
of our departments can be located.
Once the cursor is placed over the Software or Solutions departments a menu list of
categories for that department will drop down.
Each of these departments and categories within the hierarchy can
be clicked to display any featured products or specials that exist within that
department/category.
Also note that by directly clicking on the SOFTWARE category at the top of
the site (within the light-gray tabs) featured products and specials for that category will be displayed.
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How do I sort my search results?
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The result you receive will be accompanied by a sort options at the
header of the Search Results Grid. This will allow you to further refine
your results based on manufacturer, Product Name or Price. The Product,
Publisher, and Price Headers can be used to sort results. First time you
click Product it will sort your results by Product Name displaying products
from A to Z, second time you click on the Product Publisher it will sort your
results by Product Name displaying products from Z to A. Same thing for Publisher
and Price. Although when you sort by Price it will sort it from lowest to highest,
and vice versa on the second click.
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How do I filter my search results?
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The result you receive will be accompanied by a filter options box that will float at the top left of your Search Results Page.
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You may filter your search results by Publisher...
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And finally, you may also further refine your results by searching for additional terms within your search results.
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