Instructions.
Browsing the Questions
Ÿ From the Contents page, there is a link to the Table of Contents. Use the Table of Contents to jump to a specific section.
Ÿ Return to the Contents page by clicking on the "Contents" link at the top or bottom of each text.
Ÿ Click on the navigation buttons at the bottom of the screen to browse through the file or page through the documents using the keyboard. Press ALT+HOME (First Document), ALT+PG UP (Previous Document), ALT+PG DN (Next Document), and ALT+END (Last Document).
Searching the Text
Ÿ The most convenient way to search is from the Search Line. Simply press the ESC key or click in the Search Line. Then enter a word or words you wish to find and press ENTER. The search results are listed in a window at the bottom of your screen.
From the Search Line, you can use the following types of searches:
Boolean Searches
askSam allows the use of the Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT to combine the elements in your search.
Enter: peace love understanding
or Enter: peace AND love AND understanding
These two searches are identical.
Find: documents containing the words peace, love, and understanding.
Enter: Florida OR Hawaii OR California
Find: documents containing either Florida, or Hawaii, or California.
Enter: NOT war and Iraq
Find: documents which do not contain the word "war" but contain the word "Iraq".
Enter: red AND (blue OR yellow)
Find: documents containing red and either blue or yellow.
Enter: (red AND yellow) OR blue
Find: documents containing red and yellow or just blue.
Wildcard Searches
Searches can include the wildcard symbols * and ?. The * replaces multiple characters (up to 80). The ? replaces a single character.
Enter: German*
Find: Germany, Germanic, Germans, ...
Enter: 19??
Find: 1900,1901, 1902,... 1999
Searching for Phrases
When you enter several words in a search, all texts containing these words are retrieved:
Enter: band of brothers
Find: Any text that contains the combination of these three words. For example: "Both of my brothers played in the high school band."
To find words directly next to each other, place square brackets [ ] around the phrase.
Enter: [band of brothers]
Find: Any text that contains this exact phrase.
Ÿ askSam also supports other powerful search options including Boolean searches and proximity searches (show me all works where "love" and "country" appear in the same sentence). The ACTIONS menu contains a variety of search commands.
Reports
The Contents Page contains a link to REPORTS. We've included one report:
Ÿ Contextual Excerpts - This report lets you enter a word or phrase and outputs the 5 lines around and containing that word or phrase.
Printing
Ÿ Choose FILE - PRINT to print the document that is currently displayed.
The HELP file includes more information on using askSam.
Contents.
###
Contents
Prev
Next
Last
