--- title: "Search Keywords" slug: "search-keywords" tags: ["keyword", "Keyword Searching", "searches", "searching"] updated: 2025-07-11T15:08:47Z published: 2025-07-11T15:08:47Z --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.revealdata.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Search Keywords Entering a term in the Search Bar at the top of the Dashboard or any of its views will start a Keyword search. Any keyword search your run, regardless of whether you create a Wordlist, Term List, or simple keyword search, will only search the body text of your documents. There are many options available and a few syntactical things to keep in mind. ![24 - 02 - Keyword Search-2](https://5796933.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hub/5796933/hubfs/DOCUMENTATION/ARTICLE%20SCREENSHOTS/24%20-%2002%20-%20Keyword%20Search-2.png?width=1922&quality=high) 1. The Dashboard (which offers visualizations through the [***Dashboard***](/reveal/docs/dashboard), [***Grid***](/reveal/docs/grid), [***Clusters,***](/reveal/docs/clusters) or [***Heatmap***](/reveal/docs/heatmap)) features the **Search Bar** in its top center. 2. To search for a word, a string or a phrase in the project document data, type it into the Search Bar. 1. If you simply press *ENTER*, this will be treated as a keyword search by default, the same as selecting *All documents with keyword****raptor***to set this as a keyword search. All project documents containing the word *raptor* will be retrieved. > [!WARNING] > Important > > There are two symbols that are treated as text: the period "." and underscore "_" symbols. These symbols will **NOT** be considered spaces. Instead, they will be treated as a character. Please see examples below: > > - Example 1: "first.last" will be tokenized as a single term "first.last" > - Example 2: "first_last" will be tokenized as a single term "first_last" > - Example 3: "first-last" will be tokenized as two separate terms "first" and "last" 2. You may select *Discover concepts about****raptor***to begin a [***Concept Search***](/reveal/docs/search-concepts)***.***Project documents analyzed by Reveal as conceptually related to that term or proposed related terms will be retrieved. 3. You may Open Builder to develop an [](https://www.revealdata.com/knowledgebase/reveal/how-to-use-advanced-search)[***Advanced Search***](/reveal/docs/use-advanced-search)***.*** 3. All document counts, graphs, Filter lists and tables will update with results of the search, and the Results pane will open with document cards for the top items. 4. The search may be refined with additional keywords or added conditions (in **Advanced Search**) or Filters (from **Filters** in the Sidebar or as selected from bars in the Dashboard graphs). 5. When adding a Keyword under Advanced Search (**ADD > Common > Advanced Keyword**), the tilde (“**~**”) character will open a list of fields that may be selected to set an RQL (Reveal Query Language) metadata filter. Simple RQL keyword searches use the format *::””*, such as *accountant AND FILE_EXTENSION::"xls*"*. ![24 - 01a - Add Keyword Field list](https://5796933.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hub/5796933/hubfs/DOCUMENTATION/ARTICLE%20SCREENSHOTS/24%20-%2001a%20-%20Add%20Keyword%20Field%20list.png?width=607&quality=high) > [!NOTE] > Note > > The curly braces at the right of the Keyword Search pop-up entry box open a prompt to assist with syntax. ![25 - 03a - Advanced Search Add Condition - keyword assist](https://5796933.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hub/5796933/hubfs/DOCUMENTATION/ARTICLE%20SCREENSHOTS/25%20-%2003a%20-%20Advanced%20Search%20Add%20Condition%20-%20keyword%20assist.png?width=945&quality=high) 6. The search may also be enhanced with Concepts added under **Add** in **Advanced Search** or from a **Clusters** selection. 7. As you start entering a search term, Reveal may offer additional prompts relevant to your project including keywords, tag names, field names and score names. In this example, typing the string ***posi*** suggests a Field and an Emotional Intelligence score. ![25 - 00 - Search Entry Prompts](https://5796933.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hub/5796933/hubfs/DOCUMENTATION/ARTICLE%20SCREENSHOTS/25%20-%2000%20-%20Search%20Entry%20Prompts.png?width=370&quality=high) ## Keywords versus Concepts 1. A **Keyword** is a word or phrase that directly matches material indexed in Project documents and when entered retrieves these documents. 2. A **Concept**is a word or phrase that is parsed by Reveal to suggest other possibly related content found in the project. See [***How to Search Concepts***](/reveal/docs/search-concepts)******for more information. ## Phrases and Special Characters 1. **Keyword Phrases** must be entered between quotation marks (**""**) in order to be treated as a phrase and not a syntax error. 2. **Concept Phrases** are evaluated differently and may be entered without quotation marks. 3. **Keywords with special characters** *(e.g.,****"AT&T"****)*must be entered between quotation marks ("") in order to be treated as a phrase and not a collection of legal and illegal characters. 4. **Proximity** is expressed as *****w/#*****, for example ***ice w/2 soda***. 5. **Wildcard search** is currently limited to the *asterisk* (*****), and will interpret ***** as zero or more characters. 6. **Negative:** Reveal supports ***A AND NOT B***, and ***A OR NOT B***, but does not support A NOT B. 7. **Common words** are treated differently in Reveal 11. Reveal 11 uses different Elasticsearch analyzers: instead of using the StopFilter to keep common words from being indexed, the CommonGramsFilter is used instead to support efficient searching of common words. See [***Reveal Query Language Basics***](/reveal/docs/reveal-query-language-basics) to begin exploring advanced search syntax in Reveal. ## Related - [Generate a Hit Report](/generate-a-hit-report.md) - [Search Concepts](/search-concepts.md) - [Metadata Filtering](/metadata-filtering.md) - [Create a Term List](/create-a-term-list.md) - [Saved Searches](/saved-searches.md)