Search mutually exclusive tags with "OR" logic

I have about 96,000 pdf files I imported into Devonthink with tags indicating the year and decade each document was published. I sometimes want to filter results by limiting it to two or more time periods, say, documents published in 1888 and 1915. When I append “tags:1888, 1915” to my search, however, it forces an AND logic on the tags, and I obviously see zero results.

How can I do a tag search that will treat the search as: “tag1 OR tag2” while also including search terms?

E.g. (dietary NEAR restriction*) tags:1888 OR 1915

The Tag condition (see e.g. advanced search interface) supports only is (not) comparisons and wildcards. But you could construct a search via this interface and the toolbar search term gets automatically updated. This simplifies both learning or looking up the right syntax.

In this case it’s any: tags:1888;1915'

I’ve tried that, but it still functions as an AND search the moment I need to add search terms.

The closest I can get is as you described by searching for two separate tags on two separate advanced search lines using an “any” search, but then I can’t include search terms, because “any” also disregards my search term line in favor of the tag lines (and vice versa), which is pointless.

It’s possible to create sub predicates/conditions (by Option-clicking on the + button) which can handle more complex queries:

Or just enter term {any: tags:tag1;tag2} in the toolbar.

Note: Windows > Main Window > Search Pane and the links within that section in the built-in Help and manual cover searching in DEVONthink, including using search prefixes and search operators.

This is precisely what I needed, thanks!