Searching Name Variants

DEVONthink
1

Is there a way (maybe a Smart Rule?) to do a search for, as an example, H. M. Brogdon, Henry M. Brogdon and H. Brogdon all at the same time?

2

  • Searching for it… where?

  • And intending to do what with what you find?

3

Take a look in the manual under Appendix > Search operators.

You could always use the OR operator:

"H. M. Brogdon" OR "Henry M. Brogdon" OR "H. Brogdon"

But that’s pretty verbose. You could simplify to (H|Henry) BEFORE/2 Brogdon, for example.

However, you can’t use search operators everywhere in DT. So BLUEFROG’s questions are prudent.

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4

I have a master database and another database for a specific project. I’d like to do a search on a person with variant spellings of the name in the master database to then move those results, using the duplicate option, to the database for my specific project.

5

Do you want to search item names? File contents? Comments? Metadata?
Everything?

Anyways, a smart rule seems unnecessary unless this is more than a one-time thing. If the search results look correct, just select everything and duplicate to the desired database.

You could also save the search as a smart group. That way it’s easy to go back and double-check the results and refine the search if necessary.

Did my query examples help?

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6

Your comment was most helpful! I appreciate your taking the time to respond.

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