# Smart Groups / Search - long lists of criteria to search for

**URL:** https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/smart-groups-search-long-lists-of-criteria-to-search-for/67937
**Category:** DEVONthink
**Tags:** devonthink3
**Created:** [November 24, 2021, 11:34am UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/smart-groups-search-long-lists-of-criteria-to-search-for/67937 "2021-11-24T11:34:32Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![bakerd1802](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/user_avatar/discourse.devontechnologies.com/bakerd1802/32/23106_2.png) [@bakerd1802](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/u/bakerd1802)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2021, 11:34am UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/smart-groups-search-long-lists-of-criteria-to-search-for/67937/1 "2021-11-24T11:34:32Z")

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Hi everyone,

I am fairly new to this forum so I apologise if I I haven’t posted my question in the right place.

I am making a smart group with a list of names (content) to search through OCRed PDF files. However, I have a lot of names I wish to add to the list.

Is there a way to copy a pre-prepared list into the Smart group parameters? Can I use comma separation or quotation marks to add all the names into one field?

Or perhaps there is a more efficient way to do this all together?

Many thanks for your ideas,

Best,

Dan

P.S for context I am doing historical research and I have a list of high-ranking French nazis that I wish to search for all at once to build a profile. In this case, the list of names is all those of a similar rank.

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### Author: ![cgrunenberg](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/user_avatar/discourse.devontechnologies.com/cgrunenberg/32/7172_2.png) [@cgrunenberg](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/u/cgrunenberg)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2021, 11:53am UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/smart-groups-search-long-lists-of-criteria-to-search-for/67937/2 "2021-11-24T11:53:11Z")

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> [@bakerd1802](#):
>
> I am making a smart group with a list of names (content) to search through OCRed PDF files. However, I have a lot of names I wish to add to the list.

The condition _Content matches …_ plus the names separated by the OR operator and quotes for names having more than one word should work. E.g.

`name1 OR name2 OR "this is name3"`

How many names do you actually want to search for?
