Searching for a Phrase

Is it possible to search the forum for a particular phrase?

For example, can I do a search for "Alien Bees" and have the search engine return posts with that exact phrase? The way it seems to work is that I get posts with the word "bees" or the word "alien". This is just an example. I want to search for other phrases.

"alien bees"

"alien" +bees

"bees" +"alien"

Try that with the quotes left in. I got lots of hits.

Thanks. I had previously tried putting the phrase in quotes and it returns posts that have only one of the words, not the exact phrase. I just tried the other variations you suggested with another sample phrase "direct printing" but I get posts that have just the word printing.

Any other ideas?

Just enter "direct printing" and choose boolean search type.

I searched for this phrase, in quotes, using Boolean and got no matches.


Hmmm... But I tried "previously tried putting" (from RTMiller's second post) and found this thread...

I'm wondering if the "small words" which are removed from the query index - like "is" and "an" - are messing up my first search... ?

I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I tried entering direct printing and also tried entering "direct printing" and selected boolean both times. In both cases I still get posts that have just the word printing in them.

I just entered "directed printing" - quoted as shown - and checked Boolean. The first 10 threads all had the phrase "direct printing" in them. I'm pretty convinced at 10 out of 10.

It is possible that the word "printing" might still be highlighted, but the thread DID have the phrase in it.

Edit: To be sure, I choose to search for Posts rather than Threads, and randomly picked 10 posts to check. Yup, all the posts had the phrase.

Yes, that's it.
The other time it didn't work for me I think I forgot to check 'boolean'. Thank you. Sorry for being so dense today.