Learn how to use windows 7’s advanced search operators

Chris Hoffman is Editor-in-Chief of How-To Geek. He’s written about technology for over a decade and was a PCWorld columnist for two years. Chris has written for The New York Times, been interviewed as a technology expert on TV stations like Miami’s NBC 6, and had his work covered by news outlets like the BBC. Since 2011, Chris has written over 2,000 articles that have been read nearly one billion times—and that’s just here at How-To Geek. Read more.

You should never have to hunt down a lost file on modern versions of Windows — just perform a quick search. You don’t even have to wait for a cartoon dog to find your files, like on Windows XP.

The Windows search indexer is constantly running in the background to make quick local searches possible. This enables the kind of powerful search features you’d use on Google or Bing — but for your local files.

Controlling the Indexer

By default, the Windows search indexer watches everything under your user folder — that’s C:\Users\NAME. It reads all these files, creating an index of their names, contents, and other metadata. Whenever they change, it notices and updates its index. The index allows you to quickly find a file based on the data in the index. For example, if you want to find files that contain the word “beluga,” you can perform a search for “beluga” and you’ll get a very quick response as Windows looks up the word in its search index. If Windows didn’t use an index, you’d have to sit and wait as Windows opened every file on your hard drive, looked to see if the file contained the word “beluga,” and moved on.

Most people shouldn’t have to modify this indexing behavior. However, if you store your important files in other folders — maybe you store your important data a separate partition or drive, such as at D:\Data — you may want to add these folders to your index. You can also choose which types of files you want to index, force Windows to rebuild the index entirely, pause the indexing process so it won’t use any system resources, or move the index to another location to save space on your system drive.

To open the Indexing Options window, tap the Windows key on your keyboard, type “index”, and click the Indexing Options shortcut that appears. Use the Modify button to control the folders that Windows indexes or the Advanced button to control other options. To prevent Windows from indexing entirely, click the Modify button and uncheck all the included locations. You could also disable the search indexer entirely from the Programs and Features window.

Searching for Files

You can search for files right from your Start menu on Windows 7 or Start screen on Windows 8. Just tap the Windows key and perform a search. If you wanted to find files related to Windows, you could perform a search for “Windows.” Windows would show you files that are named Windows or contain the word Windows. From here, you can just click a file to open it. On Windows 7, files are mixed with other types of search results.

On Windows 8 or 8.1, you can choose to search only for files. If you want to perform a search without leaving the desktop in Windows 8.1, press Windows Key + S to open a search sidebar.

You can also initiate searches directly from Windows Explorer — that’s File Explorer on Windows 8. Just use the search box at the top-right of the window. Windows will search the location you’ve browsed to. For example, if you’re looking for a file related to Windows and know it’s somewhere in your Documents library, open the Documents library and search for Windows.

Using Advanced Search Operators

On Windows 7, you’ll notice that you can add “search filters” form the search box, allowing you to search by size, date modified, file type, authors, and other metadata.

On Windows 8, these options are available from the Search Tools tab on the ribbon. These filters allow you to narrow your search results.

If you’re a geek, you can use Windows’ Advanced Query Syntax to perform advanced searches from anywhere, including the Start menu or Start screen. Want to search for “windows,” but only bring up documents that don’t mention Microsoft? Search for “windows -microsoft”. Want to search for all pictures of penguins on your computer, whether they’re PNGs, JPEGs, or any other type of picture file? Search for “penguin kind:picture”.

We’ve looked at Windows’ advanced search operators before, so check out our in-depth guide for more information. The Advanced Query Syntax gives you access to options that aren’t available in the graphical interface.

Creating Saved Searches

Windows allows you to take searches you’ve made and save them as a file. You can then quickly perform the search later by double-clicking the file. The file functions almost like a virtual folder that contains the files you specify.

For example, let’s say you wanted to create a saved search that shows you all the new files created in your indexed folders within the last week. You could perform a search for “datecreated:this week”, then click the Save search button on the toolbar or ribbon. You’d have a new virtual folder you could quickly check to see your recent files.

One of the best things about Windows search is that it’s available entirely from the keyboard. Just press the Windows key, start typing the name of the file or program you want to open, and press Enter to quickly open it. Windows 8 made this much more obnoxious with its non-unified search, but unified search is finally returning with Windows 8.1.

Justin Garrison is a Linux enthusiast and cloud infrastructure engineer for one of the world’s biggest companies. He’s also the co-author of Cloud Native Infrastructure by O’Reilly. Read more.

Many of us rely on Windows Search to find files and launch programs, but searching for text within files is limited to specific file types by default. Here’s how you can expand your search to include other text-based files.

We have shown you some advanced search operators using Windows Search before and even how to change which files are indexed and how to rebuild your search index. But what about searching for text inside of .html, .php, .js, and other text-based web and scripting files? Windows search allows you to include other file extensions in its index with a few simple clicks.

This technique works in Windows 10, 8, 7, or even Vista. The screens might look a little different, but it’s the same basic process on all versions.

Hit Start, type “index,” and then click the “Indexing Options” result.

In the “Indexing Options” window, click the “Advanced” button.

In the “Advanced Options” window, switch to the “File Types” tab. Select the extension for the file type you would like to include in content searches, and then select the “Index Properties and File Contents” option under the list. The text in the “Filter Description” column should change to reflect whatever filter is used to open that file type by default. In our example, we’re selecting the BAT extension, so the filter type changes to “Plain Text Filter.”

If you don’t find file type you’re looking for on the list, it means no app is set as the default handler for that file type. To add the file type, type the extension in the “Add New Extension to List” box and then click the “Add” button. By default, Windows Search will use a plain text filter to search the contents of those types of files, since another app is not associated.

After the index is rebuilt, searching for text inside one of the new file types should now show results.

If you’d like to always search within file contents for a specific folder, navigate to that folder in File Explorer and open the “Folder and Search Options.”

On the “Search” tab, select the “Always search file names and contents” option.

After the index rebuilds, searches in that folder will automatically include file contents.

Advanced Query Syntax (AQS) is the default query syntax used by Windows Search to query the index and to refine and narrow search parameters. AQS is employed by developers to build queries programmatically (and by users to narrow their search parameters). Canonical AQS was introduced in WindowsВ 7 and must be used in WindowsВ 7 and later to programmatically generate AQS queries.

This topic is organized as follows:

About Advanced Query Syntax

A query consists of basic queries connected with AND, OR, and NOT, as shown in the following example syntax:

AQS is not case sensitive, with the exception of AND, OR, and NOT, which must be in all uppercase.

If a query has two or more uses of AND or OR, they will bind from left to right, regardless of whether it is AND or OR. That is, the query, “apple AND pear OR plum” will be interpreted as if it were written as “(apple AND pear) OR plum”, and the query, “apple OR pear AND plum”, will be interpreted as if it were written as “(apple OR pear) AND plum”. So if a document contains the word plum but neither apple, nor pear, the first query will return it but the second query will not. Hence, we recommend that you use explicit parentheses for any query that mixes AND and OR to avoid mistakes or misinterpretations.

A basic query searches for items that satisfy a restriction over a property. The only required portion of a basic query is the restriction or search value. If you do not specify a property, Windows Search searches all properties. represents the search restriction.

The following forms for a basic query are valid:

A property is designated by a keyword such as author or size, or by a canonical property name such as System.DateModified. Valid forms for a property are as follows:

An operator indicates an operation such as System.Message.FromAddress:[email protected] . When coding queries in applications running on WindowsВ 7В and later, you must use canonical syntax to programmatically generate AQS queries. If you do not use canonical syntax and your application is deployed in a locale or UI language different from the language in the application code, your queries will not be interpreted correctly.

The conventions for canonical keyword syntax are as follows:

• The canonical syntax for a property is its canonical name, such as System.Photo.LightSource . Canonical names are not case sensitive.
• The canonical syntax for the Boolean operators consists of the keywords AND, OR, and NOT, in all uppercase.
• The operators , =, and so forth, are not localized and are thus also part of the canonical syntax.
• If a property P has enumerated values or ranges named Nв‚Ѓ through Nв‚–, the canonical syntax for the Ith value or range is the canonical name for P, followed by the character #, followed by N_I, as illustrated in the following example:
  • System.Photo.LightSource#Daylight , System.Photo.LightSource#StandardA , and so forth.
• For a defined semantic type T with values or ranges named Nв‚Ѓ through Nв‚–, the canonical syntax for the Ith value or range is the canonical name for T, followed by the character #, followed by N_I, as illustrated in the following example:
  • System.Devices.LaunchDeviceStageFromExplorer:=System.StructuredQueryType.Boolean#True
• For literal values such as words or phrases, the canonical syntax is the same as the regular syntax. Examples of queries with literal values in canonical syntax are:
  • System.Author:sanjay
  • System.Keywords:”Animal”
  • System.FileCount:>100

There is no canonical syntax for numbers in WindowsВ 7В and later. Because floating point formats vary among locales, the use of a canonical query that involves a floating point constant is not supported. Integer constants, in contrast, can be written using only digits (no separators for thousands) and can be safely used in canonical queries in WindowsВ 7В and later.

Examples

The following table shows some examples of canonical properties and the syntax for using them.

For more information about canonical properties and the property system generally, see System Properties. Alternatively, refer to the public header files.

Query Operators

If a property, p, has multiple values for some item, an AQS query for p: returns the item if is true for at least one of the values. ( represents a restriction.)

The syntax listed in the following table consists of an operator, operator symbol, example and example description. The operator and symbol can be used in any language and included in any query. Do not use the COP_IMPLICIT or COP_APPLICATION_SPECIFIC operators. Some of the operators have interchangeable symbols.

[!Note]
Because date formats (like floating point formats) vary among locales, the use of canonical syntax with absolute dates is not supported and is not localization safe.

[!Note]
In addition to searching on specific dates and date ranges, AQS recognizes relative date values (like today, tomorrow, nextweek, nextmonth), and day (like Tuesday or Monday..Wednesday), and month (February).

I’ve been using Windows 7 for some time now, and loving it!

However, when I was preaching to my family and friends, they asked me if the Advanced Search pane (that we used to have in XP) is back in Windows 7.

Of course, with the Windows Search Advanced Query Syntax (let’s call this AQS), we are able to achieve what the advanced search pane could and more. But then they brought up a pretty good point:

Why should I (they) have to learn/memorize a special syntax in order to perform a complex search, when the advanced search pane in XP was so much more straightforward? And I kinda agree with them.

E.g, without looking at the AQS documentation, how many of you can immediately come up with the single search criteria for:

1. all jpg and png files (only)
2. that are in e:\images and d:\images and f:\dir\images
3. without recursing into any subdirectories
4. that are larger than 10KB
5. and was created between 25th of December and 1st of January?

Anyone got an answer for that?

Or is there some sort of advanced search pane like in Outlook? Pick from a list of filters the field to search/filter by, and you get a nice label/textbox for you to type in?

I’ve done some digging, and it seems like there’s only partial ( restricted ) support for this. E.g, in the Music library, you can only add filters for Album, Artist, Genre, Length ; Documents: Authors, Type, Date modified, Size ; etc.

And when you’re not in a library, e.g, folder on an external disk, the only filters you can add are Date modified and Size .

Are there any ways to add more filters? Or are we limited to either: 1) relying on the filters that Windows 7 *THINKS* we need, or 2) buckle down and memorize the AQS?

[Edit]
Here’s another story: I was explaining to my mom how you could build an AQS search criteria, and she remarked (paraphrased), “Why is it trying to search when you’re not even done typing? Why not have a search button that begins searching only when you are ready to?”

I’m a .Net software developer and I have no problem with .Net framework, C#, WCF/RIA, Silverlight, etc.

But, I can’t figure out how Windows 7 search works. Every time I google or Bing around on the subject I see posts where people say they have given up on how to use it.

For instance, I want to find all .DOC or DOCX files with the phrase “introduction to” in it. This was really easy on XP. Also, is there a simple guide anywhere on how to do the kinds of things we used to do in XP?

Report abuse

Replies (7) 

F3 will bring up the search function. Then in the far right corner, you can specify what file types to search for.

Also try some of the suggestions given in this thread.

Report abuse

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn’t help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

So, you say “specify what file types to search for” I want to find all .DOC or DOCX files with the phrase “introduction to” in it. How do I do it?

That article ended with the best solution was a reccomendation to buy a 3rd party search tool. That’s pretty much the same thing I found googling around. It appears that the answer is: Windows 7 search is no good.

Report abuse

1 person found this reply helpful

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn’t help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

See if these help – add the file type and the location to the index.

One thing that seems to be affecting many is the ACHIVE bit has been set on some files that
Index can’t set and Search can’t find. So the ATTRIB -A *.* /S which means the archive bit
is REMOVED for the Parent (top) folder/directory files and for those in all sub-folders/sub-
directories.

How to Set and Unset the Read-only File and Folder Attribute in Windows (See Method Two)

Another problem seems to be McAfee and some other antivirus programs are interferring with the
Index and/or Search functions. McAfee would have to be uninstalled using the Uninstall routine in
Windows AND the McAfee removal too to be sure no remnants are left. (Possibly other antivirus
programs are also causing this error.) Of course you would want to switch to another antivirus
such as MSE (Microsoft Essentials), Avast or others.

There could an index error or even an addition that needs to be made. Also Windows 7 offers
many enhanced Search features.

Troubleshooting Windows 7 & Vista Search & Indexing Errors

References to Vista also apply to Windows 7.

Win Key F opens advanced search

Hope this helps.

Rob Brown – MS MVP – Windows Desktop Experience : Bicycle – Mark Twain said it right.

Report abuse

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn’t help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

So, you say “specify what file types to search for” I want to find all .DOC or DOCX files with the phrase “introduction to” in it. How do I do it?

That article ended with the best solution was a reccomendation to buy a 3rd party search tool. That’s pretty much the same thing I found googling around. It appears that the answer is: Windows 7 search is no good.

I gave you the easiest method I could find. Did you even bother trying it? (Press F3) I have no problems using the search function in Win7. I’m surprised that as a programmer, something so simple as the search function eludes your capability to figure out. Sounds like based on your last posting, you didn’t even give it a fair shake before coming to that conclusion that it’s no good. Here are some screenshots step-by-step.

Step #1) Press F3

Step #2) You can see in the drop down box on the right hand side, that there’s some file types listed already. Although .docx is not listed, you can manually type in “.docx”

Step #3) Optional: You can specify specific folders or drives here before you start the search by clicking on the “custom” option.

Step #4) After specifying the file type, press space, then whatever keyword you want: In this example, I did a keyword search on “author”.

Report abuse

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn’t help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

In File Explorer I’m entering the search query below. It doesn’t work as expected, and will find files outside of the date range.

How can I search for .mp4 AND .mov files within a date range?

modified:1/1/2020..2/4/2020 AND name:*.mp4 OR name:*.mov

Report abuse

Replies (14) 

* Please try a lower page number.

* Please enter only numbers.

* Please try a lower page number.

* Please enter only numbers.

Hi there! I’m a brand enthusiast and a Top Ten contributor here in Microsoft Community.

Windows actually has very detailed search capabilities with Advanced Query Syntax (AQS.) I won’t pretend: I know ‘about’ these, but not in enough detail to help you.

One guy who knows this inside out is Matt Klein. You can read his detailed instructions in the famous How-To Geek blog:

Report abuse

3 people found this reply helpful

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn’t help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

Hi Bernie. I’m Greg, an installation specialist, 10 years awarded Windows MVP, and Volunteer Moderator. If you will work with me I will be here to help until the issue is resolved.

You can also use the Windows 10 Search which should search your files if they’ve been included in the Index. See here how this can be maximized to your advantage:

I hope this helps. Feel free to ask back any questions and keep me posted. If you will wait to choose if I resolved your problem, I will keep working with you until it’s resolved.

Standard Disclaimer: There are links to non-Microsoft websites. The pages appear to be providing accurate, safe information. Watch out for ads on the sites that may advertise products frequently classified as a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Products). Thoroughly research any product advertised on the sites before you decide to download and install it.

Windows MVP 2010-20

Millions helped via my tutorials and personally in forums for 12 years. Now an Independent Advisor.

I do not quit for those who are polite and cooperative.

tutorial by Marte Brengle published on 04.03.2015

Most of us have had times when we sort-of knew what it was we wanted to find on our computer, but didn’t remember the exact file name. In this article, we will talk about some advanced ways to find what you want in Windows, some of which work better than others.

NOTE: The process works the same way in Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, but as you’ll see, the display of search results in Windows 8.1 can be much more complete and usable.

How To Use The Most Common Wildcards: * And ?

Since the very beginning, Microsoft has allowed searches using two wildcards, the asterisk (*) and the question mark (?). In general terms, the question mark is used to substitute for one letter or symbol that you don’t know. The asterisk is used to substitute for many letters and symbols. Let’s investigate this, using the Windows 7 Start Menu search box and then the Start screen in Windows 8.1.

In a previous article, we showed what happened when the word cat was used as a search term in the Windows 7 Start Menu search box, which searches all your indexed files. Here’s a repeat of the picture.

The result is a list of files that have the exact letter combination “cat” in their names. In Windows 8.1, if you search for “cat” on the Start screen, you will get a similar list, on the right side of your screen.

But press Enter and presto, you get a whole screen full of results, sorted by type of file. The constraints of this page’s format won’t do justice to the full screen, but here’s a look at it. As you can see, a selection of files is displayed, with a link to click to get the rest of them.

Let’s say you wanted to look for all the files with names very close to “cat.” Here we have substituted a question mark for the final letter T. As you can see, the results are very different! Here is Windows 7:

And here is Windows 8.1. As you can see, apps and help files are included in the full screen list, along with graphics and files. Much more useful, and all in one place.

Why did both results include all those file names that are way longer than “cat”? Because that is the way Search works. A wildcard character at the end of a search term only tells Search that the user wants to see the files whose names have the letters C-A followed by another letter, regardless of the length of the name. You’d think that just typing the letters C-A would be sufficient, but doing that turns up a completely different list of files. Here is Windows 7.

And here is Windows 8.1, the sidebar version:

What if you search with the question mark in the middle of the word? If the system works logically, it would tell Search to find words where the letter T is two letters after the letter C, but the letter between them is unknown. But that’s not how it actually works. As you can see in both operating systems, not many items on the list actually match the search criteria. Here is Windows 7:

And here is Windows 8.1:

Very confusing. Fortunately, there are ways to filter the search so you get closer to what you want, and we’ll discuss that in just a minute.

The other wild card, the asterisk, is used to represent many letters. As you can see by the examples above, in both operating systems Search already works as though you’d put an asterisk at the end of the word, so putting it there yourself is not necessary. Let’s search for all files that contain the letter C followed by the letter T, with any number of letters in between. This is what happens. Sometimes there is considerable distance between the C and the T! First, Windows 7:

As you can see, using wildcards isn’t always useful in turning up the information you’re looking for.

How To Get Better Search Results With Filters

If you know the type of file you’re looking for, you can specify it in the search, and thus not clutter up your results with all kinds of things that contain the right search term but are not what you’re looking for.

Let’s try to find photos of cats. In this case, we tell Search to look for files with “cat” in the file name and one of the graphics file extensions, in this case, .jpg. Type cat ext:.jpg as the search term.

Why did all those files with cryptic file names turn up? Those are photographs that have been tagged with the keyword “cat”. Those files would also be found by using the search term cat tag:cat.

In Windows 8.1, thumbnails of relevant files turn up, with a link to click for the rest of them. This search will also turn up photos tagged with the keyword “cat.”

NOTE:We have covered tagging and changing metadata in previous tutorials. It takes time to do this, but the more information you add to your files, the easier they will be to find.

Microsoft has provided over 100 search terms you can use to find what you want. The most commonly used are things like name, ext (also written filext or filextension), date, tag, and created (which is another way of specifying date). To see a list of what’s possible, open Windows Explorer or File Explorer and choose a folder (any folder will do).

Change to the Details view if you’re not already using that. See our tutorial here: Explaining the Views Available in Windows Explorer and File Explorer.

In both operating systems, right-click on the column header labeled Name, and from the menu that appears, click More.

Now you can find a scrollable list of all the currently available options for column headers in Windows Explorer and File Explorer, and the great thing is that any of these terms can be used to modify a search. However, your files will have to include some of this information in their metadata (supplied by you, since a lot of it isn’t included automatically) or the search will turn up nothing.

Searching, searching, searching…

The best way to become familiar with the ways Search can be used is to try it. You can’t cause any harm to your computer by looking things up in different ways, and you may be surprised at what turns up. One benefit of searching is that you will very likely turn up files you’d forgotten you had, and that you no longer need to keep. Nothing like learning a new skill and freeing up space at the same time!

Have you discovered new ways to use Search? Have you had problems with it? Let’s discuss it in the comments below.

Comb through millions of comments and posts in seconds

Over the past decade, Reddit has gone from a simple Digg competitor to a complete replacement for a large portion of the internet’s forum and chat communities.

Today, with over 26 million active users, it’s the go-to social news and discussion platform. If you don’t use Reddit, you’re missing out on a wealth of breaking information and some very interesting conversations.

The good news is, if you’re just recently joining Reddit, there’s a backlog of millions of posts for you to search through! Want to know tips for getting started on the keto diet? Reddit’s got them. Need information on which credit card is the best option for a teenager? Reddit can help. However, finding exactly what you’re looking for requires you to know a few tricks.

In this article, let’s go over Reddit’s advanced search operators and learn how to navigate through Reddit’s search like a pro.

Keyword Search Operators for Reddit

Reddit’s keyword search operators use terms that tell the text thereafter how to filter results. Using them is the most advanced way to narrow down your search to the content you’re looking for. There are currently nine of these, all shown below.

title

The “title” search operator limits results to posts where the text thereafter (requiring quotation marks if more than one word) is found within the title. This can be used as a way to find entire threads about a particular topic.

• Example:title:”training my dog”

author

The “author” search operator limits results to posts made by a specific user. This is not case sensitive.

selftext

The “selftext” search operator limits results to self-posts where the text thereafter (requiring quotation marks if more than one word) is found within the body. This can sometimes behave strangely when used with more than one word, even if wrapped in quotation marks.

The “url” search operator limits results to link posts that contain the exact URL thereafter. This can sometimes return a small percentage of link posts that don’t match the URL.

The “site” search operator limits results to link posts that contain URLs that belong to a specific domain name.

The “nsfw” search operator allows you to toggle showing (with “yes” or “1”) or hiding (with “no” or “0”) NSFW posts.

• Example:nsfw:no

The “self” search operator allows you to toggle showing (with “yes” or “1”) or hiding (with “no” or “0”) self-posts.

• Example:self:yes

subreddit

The “subreddit” search operator limits results to posts made within a specific subreddit.

flair

The “flair” search operator limits results to posts tagged with a certain flair text.

Boolean Search Operators for Reddit

Reddit’s boolean search operators use strict conditions to limit search results. I’ve noticed that these operators do not seem to work properly when using Reddit’s new design, so you’ll need to revert to the old design if you want to make use of these.

The “AND” search operator limits results to posts that include both terms. This works by default for basic query searches, meaning you don’t have to use it, but this may be required in advanced cases where several different operators are used.

The “OR” search operator limits results to posts that include either term. You must surround a term with quotation marks if it contains more than one word.

The “NOT” search operator limits results to posts that do not include the text thereafter. You must surround a term with quotation marks if it contains more than one word.

The best part about Reddit’s advanced search operators is that they can be used together! By surrounding each operator in parentheses, you can string together a long set of conditions that can help you narrow down millions of posts to just a small handful.

Another big tip is to try your search using both the new and old Reddit designs. For some reason, certain operators seem to behave differently across each. As noted above, the boolean operators actually only work while using the old design. While Reddit clearly hasn’t ironed out all of the kinks in their search feature, there’s no doubt that with the dozen operators listed above, searching through Reddit is a breeze.

Curious to know how you can use similar tricks with Google’s search? Check out our article on Google search operators.

Craig is a long-time writer, coder, and marketer with years of experience in the technology and gaming spaces. Since 2008, he’s worked remotely with some of the most notable publications in these industries, specializing in Windows, PC hardware and software, automation, and the like. Read Craig’s Full Bio

tutorial by Ciprian Adrian Rusen published on 03.13.2013

What do you do when you have to insert special characters that can’t be found on your keyboard? You use the Character Map tool found both in Windows 7 and Windows 8. It allows you to insert scientific notations, mathematical operators, currency symbols and characters from languages like Japanese Hiragana , Katakana, Korean Hanji and others. In this tutorial, I will show how to find the Character Map, share a few ways of searching for a character and how to copy characters to any Windows application.

Were to Find Character Map in Windows 7

There are several ways of finding Character Map. One is to go to ‘Start Menu -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Character Map’.

Also, you can type the word ‘character’ in the Start Menu search box and click Character Map.

When opened, the Character Map window will look similar to the one below.

Were to Find Character Map in Windows 8

In Windows 8, the fastest way to launch this tool is to search for the word ‘character’, directly on the Start screen. Then, click or tap the appropriate result.

Alternatively, go to the Start screen and right click or swipe from the bottom, then click or tap All apps. Scroll right until you find the Windows Accessories folder.

There, click or tap Character Map, to open the application.

As you can see, it looks identical to the Windows 7 version and behaves in a similar way.

Find & Copy Characters Using the Basic View of the Character Map

Characters in Character Map are grouped by Fonts. Click or tap the fonts drop-down list to choose one.

Click or tap a character to see it magnified.

When you select a character, you can view the its name and keystroke, at the bottom of the Character Map window.

The keystroke represents the combination of keys that you can press to insert the character into any document, without manually copying the character from Character Map. If you need to use a symbol many times, using the keystroke can be very useful.

All keystroke combinations have this format: the ‘Alt’ key followed by a 4-digits number. To use a keystroke, make sure the ‘Num lock’ is on. Hold down the ‘Alt’ key and, in the numeric pad type the number code. When you release the ‘Alt’ key, the symbol appears in the document.

Important Note: The symbols can be inserted only by using the numeric pad.

You can also copy a character without using the keyboard. To do this, first click or tap the symbol you want to copy. Then, click or tap Select or double-click the symbol. The character will appear in the ‘Characters to copy’ box. Click or tap Copy and then paste it where you want.

You can also select multiple characters to copy. Choose the ones you want by double clicking on them (or selecting them) one by one.

You will see the symbols being added to the ‘Characters to copy’ field. When done selecting them all, click or tap Copy.

Now you can paste them to any application or document.

Find &Copy Characters Using the Advanced View of the Character Map

To open the additional controls, check the box named ‘Advanced view’.

This opens an additional list of options, at the bottom of the Character Map window.

Each character set provides support for different character encodings, specific to different languages or groups of languages like Arabic, Baltic, Cyrillic, Greek, Japanese, Thai and others. Click or tap the ‘Character set’ drop-down list to see the options it has to offer.

Character Map allows you to group symbols by different criteria. For example, Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters are grouped by the way they sound. Click or tap the ‘Group by:’ drop-down list to choose between the available grouping options.

Click or tap different the options from the ‘Group By’ window to see the corresponding symbols in Character map.

If you know the name of a character, or part of it’s name, type it in the Search for field and click or tap Search.

For example, if I’m looking for a symbol that contains a dot, I can type dot and see all the characters that have the word dot as part of their name.

To reset your search terms, click or tap Reset.

Conclusion

As you can see from this guide, Character Map allows you to find all the symbols available with each font installed in Windows. Try it out when you need to work with special symbols in your documents and let us know how it works. Have you learned any useful tricks about using this tool? If you did, don’t hesitate to share them. Unfortunately there’s very little information available about this tool. Anything you learn is worth sharing with others.