Exclude documents/folders from search

Scrivener
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1

Is there any way to exclude documents from the search? Like you can do for documents in the trash.

I have many long PDF files that do not need to be included in every search.

2

  1. You can set your search to check the Draft folder only, if what you mean to search is your manuscript.

  2. You can set your search to Binder Selection Only, so it will only check items that are selected in the Binder, giving you the ability to restrict your search in a more ad hoc way.

  3. You can uncheck “Include ‘Excluded Documents’” and this will cause those PDFs to be skipped, because as “uncompilables”, they are “excluded” automatically.

These settings are found under the Magnifying Glass pop-up menu at the left of the Project Search field.

3

Thanks @gr I saw this option in the manual but didn’t understand exactly what it meant. Now I have understood it. Unfortunately for me it is not suitable because I don’t want to exclude all PDF, but only those in a specific folder.

Yes, this is a good option. I select everything and exclude that one folder with the PDF.

I had another idea. I just put this folder in the trash. That way I don’t have to change anything in the search options. This is the fastest way, but it’s dangerous because I have to be careful what I delete permanently :cold_face:

4

You could put all pdf’s you don’t want included in searches in the Research section and change the search paramater at the bottom to the draft manual only and hide info that you don’t want searched for in Research. Changing parameters of where searching can bring them back into your searches in the future.

5

Thanks, but I don’t have a draft or a research folder, or if you want I only have research folders 
 I use Scrivener a bit differently :slightly_smiling_face:

6

Interesting, then could create a collection of the files you usually search, or even multiple collections for different groups you search. Click on the collection, hit ctrl + A and view in scrivenings view and then run your searches just on the collection and thus exclude the pdf’s. As create more files you want to search then add them to your “search collection” as you go and it will grow as you do.

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7

Yes, I could. But that’s quite a bit more work than having a folder in the trash where all the PDF’s are. The folder has a green label and is called “DO NOT delete”. :joy:

8

You must have a draft or research folder, unless you have renamed them; in which case they may have different names but will be functionally equivalent. You can’t delete them from a Scrivener project!

:slight_smile:
Mark

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9

Okay, I have expressed myself imprecisely. I should have said I don’t use the Draft folder. It’s empty because I can only put one kind of documents in it. The research folder is a folder like all the others. A part of my documents are not in any folder at all. 
 anyway 
 I was looking for a way to exclude a folder from the search with as little effort as possible and found a solution. let’s see how this works in everyday life. :slightly_smiling_face:

10

Truth too tell I very, very rarely empty the project Trash in Scrivener. So your crazy genius strategy does not even seem dangerous to me!

11

Interesting. Are you doing any writing/compiling of stuff you create? Or are you using Scrivener as a document repository, hence the needs for relatively sophisticated search?

12

I’ve been asked this before because my questions are apparently strange. :smiley: Actually, I’m probably not a typical Scrivener user. I earn my money by writing, but I’m not a writer or anything like that. What I write is not published, rather the opposite, it is kept under lock and key. My name is not on anything I write. Whoever commissions me wants information in the form of a text. What this text looks like is not important.

Every sentence I write must be supported by at least one source (text, audio, image). These sources are in Scrivener. If I can’t find a source, I can’t use the information. I can’t reproduce it roughly from memory. I make a good living by not making mistakes. If I make mistakes, I’m out of business. So for me, it’s important that I find what I’m looking for. :slightly_smiling_face:

There are apps that offer very complex search methods, such as Regex (Scrivener too). But if I understood Regex, I would have become something else. Or vice versa: I am good at what I do because I don’t understand Regex. There are skills that are mutually exclusive. The one who understands Regex is a different type of person. Not better, not worse 
 different.

Since I learned to use Scrivener to do several searches in a row (search in the search results), I get pretty good results. It’s a bit cumbersome, but not a big problem. As far as I can tell, Scrivener is the best solution for me, even compared to Devonthink. Scrivener does much more exactly the way I want it to on a “practical level” than DT.

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