When I use Finder to try and find which files contain a certain word, it doesn't find the word if it occurs only in footnotes. Is there any way to fix this?
Mac OSX Big Sur, v11.6.2
MS Word for Mac, v16.58
Thanks!
I have no issue on macOS Monterey 12.2.1, where I have Word 16.58 installed, using Spotlight to find words in .docx, whether they are in the documents body text, or in footnotes. The key is to have Documents selected in Spotlight's Search Results preferences setting, and use the following 🔍 syntax:
kind:word "I am footnote text"
The same syntax works for me on macOS 11.6.4 too.
I have no issue on macOS Monterey 12.2.1, where I have Word 16.58 installed, using Spotlight to find words in .docx, whether they are in the documents body text, or in footnotes. The key is to have Documents selected in Spotlight's Search Results preferences setting, and use the following 🔍 syntax:
kind:word "I am footnote text"
The same syntax works for me on macOS 11.6.4 too.
macOS Finder does not search for text in a Word document; Word has its own search facility.
Word Menu Bar > Edit > Find will produce a search box. The Keyboard command is Command and F
Then enter your text. The results will be highlighted in the document.
I just created a new Word 16.58 document with a footnote that I saved to my Desktop (not OneDrive). As soon as I quit Word, and opened a Finder window, I could search for a word unique to that footnote and immediately found the document. Same format as I used previously in this thread. Still on macOS 12.2.1.
Before you consider upgrading to Monterey, first, update Big Sur to 11.6.4, and then create a new Word 16.58 document with a footnote, and try the experiment again. Since I purchased Office 2021 for Mac (home & business), it is installed on my Monterey MacBook Pro and not Big Sur.
I never use Spotlight. So I tried it just now - opened its preferences and deselected everything excepts Documents, and then tried searching for the word - but how do I tell it which folder(s) to search in? - the result was it opened a new browser tab with my search arguments in the default search engine.
In the upper right-hand corner of the Finder window, there is a search field, marked by a little picture of a magnifying glass.
You can use it to search for files, and to search for file content.
This website probably contains more information somewhere that can help you further with this concept.
I would not deselect everything in the Spotlight Search Results category as that will exclude any new indexing that is not a document category.
In Finder Preferences >Advanced > When performing a search: [ Search the Current Folder ↕︎ ].
Same search sequence I offered before, just in that Finder search window. Start either in your home directory so it will search the Desktop and all other folders in your account. Apple has an article about how to use Spotlight:
That setting you mention in the Finder Preferences: It's already set. When I enter a word to search for, it searches in the current folder - and next to the name of the current folder, above the list of search results, I can click on "This Mac" if I want to see results for all folders.
And yet if the term is only in a footnote - not body text - in a given file, that file is not listed among results.
I don't know whether this will offer a clue to the source of my problem, but maybe:
I also run Windows as a virtual machine on my Mac. In it, I have a great search program installed (Agent Ransack, aka FileLocator) which, notwithstanding how great the program is otherwise, also fails to find text in footnotes.
It's very good of you to take the time, thank you.
It still doesn't work for me.
I even tried putting the file in my Desktop folder, to completely copy your procedure. Didn't help.
I wonder if updating to macOS 12 will make all the difference? Boy, won't I feel silly if that's the case. Still, not having this problem anymore would make up for it.
I'll find time later to do that update, and we'll see ...
So I did all that, and it worked as you say: Finder found the term in the footnote in the docx I created. But this still doesn't work with my existing docs, so it is of limited usefulness to me. Thanks anyway for having taken the time!
Hello Apple, any help to offer on this? Today I found a similar thread from three years ago:
Can Finder search footnotes? - Apple Community
... also without having resolved the issue.
Finder uses the Spotlight database to find things. I have a Word .docx from 2017 with footnotes in it and Spotlight found a word in the footnote immediately. I have different Word .doc documents from 1995 that Spotlight cannot penetrate, so age, not Word document type can be a limitation.
The file that started me on this quest was created by me 3 weeks ago. I don't think age is a factor here.
How can I search all text, incl. footnotes, in Docx files?
