looking for specific words in a text

Kristin · 2025-03-21T01:39:03+00:00

There was an error rendering this rich post.

I am sorry for this question as I know it has been answered before, but I am really having a hard time with this.

I am in a random text and am looking for a phrase I can't find, but I know the phrase. So I typed it in and instead of it finding that phrase, it is finding all the words of the phrase as independent hits.

I feel like there is supposed to be a little toggle where I can switch it to find things in the text, but I can't find it. Also, to be clear, I am in a text and searching words, I didn't open a new search window or something.

What I am searching for doesn't even matter, but as an example, in the ESV if I type "lamb of God" and search surface text, it finds no hits, if I type it without the quotes it pulls a bunch of random verses about God and lambs, which is a problem, but it further ironically says there are 20 hits and ends in Ezra (I am in the ESV), and Jn 1:29 and Jn 1:36 don't show up.

If I type Lamb of God without quotes John finally shows up, but Rev 5:6 and Rev 7:17 and a bunch of other verses show up which do not contain the phrase, but just the words.

Thank you for any help anyone can provide, this is super frustrating. I am on v.10, so as far as where settings are.

Find more posts tagged with

Accepted answers

MJ. Smith

Either put the phrase in quotation marks or use a find (in the panel menu) for the text.

Graham Criddle

When we use quotes such as "grace and truth" we are telling Logos to find any places in the text we are searching that has that extra group of words in that order.

When we use the same words without quotes grace and truth we are affectively telling Logos to execute this search grace AND and AND and truth. This returns hits for all verses (or articles in non-versified resources) where all of those words are present in the same verse (article).

The case question is diffferent and as @Aaron Hamilton mentioned above, this is where the match case button in the full search panel comes in. But, based on some testing, I think there is a difference here between which toolbar is being used (and I wonder if this was an intentional change).

With the original toolbar - the one @Kristin is using - an Inline Search "inherited" the case sensitivity of the last "full" search of the text. With the dynamic toolbar that does not seem to be the case.

@Kristin - could you please try running a full search of the ESV and turning off the match case button in that search panel. Then open the ESV in a new panel, select the inline search option and enter "lamb of God" as the search string. I think that should the two expected verses in John 1.

All comments

MJ. Smith

Either put the phrase in quotation marks or use a find (in the panel menu) for the text.

Kristin

Hi @MJ. Smith,

Ok, great, thanks! I had been super worried that it would be a multi-step process with other tabs with lists or something. Apparently the problem is that the only version of quotes I tried was "lamb of God" as opposed to "Lamb of God".

Aaron Hamilton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1363563#Comment_1363563

Capital letters are irrelevant for inline search and only matter in the full search tool when Match case (upper-right corner) is selected.

Kristin

Capital letters are irrelevant for inline search and only matter in the full search tool when Match case (upper-right corner) is selected.

Hi @Aaron Hamilton,

Just so I understand, what matters in the inline search is the quotes, and what matters for the normal search is the Match case button (what I had been looking for in the inline search and couldn't find), but it seems like case needs to matter in the inline also since "lamb of God" didn't work. Or am I misunderstanding something?

Aaron Hamilton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1363566#Comment_1363566

Quotes always matter for precise search when the query contains multiple words. I would encourage you to try the inline search again in the ESV and if it doesn't work, post a screenshot. It should work fine.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1363566#Comment_1363566

No, if you don't have match case turned on both "lamb of god" and "Lamb of God" work in both searches. The quote mark essential say "these words in this order" as opposed to "these words somewhere"

Kristin

Hi @Aaron Hamilton and @MJ. Smith,

I think it is working fine, but since I am finding this confusing, I figured I would just post a screenshot.

Bildschirmfoto 2025-03-20 um 21.28.43.png

Aaron Hamilton

I agree; that is confusing. Why do you think it's working fine? Have you found what went wrong? I don't see it in the screenshot.

Kristin

Hi @Aaron Hamilton,

So just so I understand:

quotes make something case sensitive in an inline search
no quotes just finds the random words and disregards the phrase in an inline search
the regular search does not need quotes since it has the match case option

I think I had just find it confusing since before I posted I tried lamb of God and "lamb of God" and somehow neglected to try it with lamb also capitalized and concluded the quotes didn't work an spent about 20 minutes looking for that little match case toggle. I think I have it figured out finally.

On a side note, I think I am also just feeling a little sensitive to settings I can't find since that "multiple verse" thing has been so disorienting. When I first got Logos, I learned in about 5 seconds that I couldn't just type in multiple verses and that the only thing you could do with a passage list is view the verses. So it sort of brought my work in it to a standstill. Then I recently learned that I could see multiple verses if I type OR, but only on specific tabs since just typing it in a normal Bible pane still doesn't work. Then after all of that I learn that the Passage List actually is more functional than I had thought, and now I can't remember why anyone would ever type OR. Logos is an EXTREMELY powerful program, but some of the settings are so unintuitive that I feel like Alice at the tea party learning how the program works. Once I finally get it, I start discovering even more helpful things about the program, but to say it is a sharp learning curve to make the program functional is an understatement.

Aaron Hamilton

quotes make something case sensitive in an inline search

This is not correct.

no quotes just finds the random words and disregards the phrase in an inline search

This is correct.

the regular search does not need quotes since it has the match case option

This is not correct.

Kristin

quotes make something case sensitive in an inline search
This is not correct.

Hi @Aaron Hamilton,

Does that mean my screenshot is showing a bug?

Aaron Hamilton

Does that mean my screenshot is showing a bug?

I don't understand what's going on here, sorry. The search is working on my end.

Kristin

I don't understand what's going on here, sorry. The search is working on my end.

Hi @Aaron Hamilton ,

If I am understanding correctly, if you type "lamb of God" into the ESV, it only pulls the two John passages. Is that correct? If so, I think I should try restarting Logos and see if that fixes it. I need to finish up something specific, but as soon as I can safely close the layout without losing track of what I'm doing it, I will close it and what happens if I search it again.

Aaron Hamilton

if you type "lamb of God" into the ESV, it only pulls the two John passages. Is that correct?

Yes, that is correct.

Kristin

Hi @Aaron Hamilton,

I am finally at a breaking point with that complicated project, so I completely shut down Logos and re-opened it, and ran the following searches. There is for sure something odd going on, and what I think is concerning me the most is that it was pulling Hebrew for the NT.

Attached is a screenshot of the searches I ran. I tried to mark everything I think is important. Thank you for your help.

Bildschirmfoto 2025-03-21 um 00.28.47.png

Graham Criddle

When we use quotes such as "grace and truth" we are telling Logos to find any places in the text we are searching that has that extra group of words in that order.

Kristin

With the original toolbar - the one @Kristin is using - an Inline Search "inherited" the case sensitivity of the last "full" search of the text. With the dynamic toolbar that does not seem to be the case.
@Kristin - could you please try running a full search of the ESV and turning off the match case button in that search panel. Then open the ESV in a new panel, select the inline search option and enter "lamb of God" as the search string. I think that should the two expected verses in John 1.

Hi @Graham Criddle,

Thank you for the explanation. Attached is a screenshot where I think it is working as you described. However, similar to my screenshot above, the multiple books I have open is not just the OT, but the NT also, yet it is not pulling Greek for John.

Bildschirmfoto 2025-03-21 um 09.00.37.png

Graham Criddle

Attached is a screenshot where I think it is working as you described

Thanks for checking that @Kristin - I've requested some clarification on how this is working here

the multiple books I have open is not just the OT, but the NT also, yet it is not pulling Greek for John.

I saw you mentioned that above but I'm afraid I didn't understand the point you are making

Could you clarify / expand please?

Kristin

the multiple books I have open is not just the OT, but the NT also, yet it is not pulling Greek for John.
I saw you mentioned that above but I'm afraid I didn't understand the point you are making
Could you clarify / expand please?

Hi @Graham Criddle,

My understanding is that if I have the ESV open and have the multiple books options of the Hebrew and Greek, that when I am reading a verse in the OT, that the BHS or whatever Hebrew text will appear in parallel, but then when I am in the NT (like Jn 1:29 above), that the ESV would still show, but it would now change to the NA28 since the BHS no longer applies. However, in my screenshot the ESV is showing Jn 1:29, but the BHS and BHW are showing Gen 1:1. It is not only odd that the Hebrew texts are still there, but it is particularly strange that the NA28 is not there, given that it is selected in the multiple book options.

I hope that is clearer, but If it would help to provide a specific screenshot, please let me know.

Graham Criddle

I hope that is clearer, but If it would help to provide a specific screenshot, please let me know.

Thanks for clarifying @Kristin - I understand what you are describing now.

And I agree something strange is going on.

I don't know if you noticed but your screenshot still shows the current reference as being Gen 1:1 which would explain why the two Hebrew texts are still in display. But even if you were to click on one of the search results in John, even though that would update the reference it would still not bring in the NA28.

If you click the "heading" - John 1:29 - you would open a new instance of the ESV and this would have the NA28 correctly accompanying it.

So there is something here about search results not updating references - but I'm not fully sure what is going on!

Kristin

I don't know if you noticed but your screenshot still shows the current reference as being Gen 1:1 which would explain why the two Hebrew texts are still in display. … So there is something here about search results not updating references - but I'm not fully sure what is going on!

Hi @Graham Criddle,

Thank you for the explanation, and given this, I think it is a bug. The reason why Gen 1 is there isn't because I had searched for Gen 1, but rather since I opened the ESV and it just showed up. I tried to delete it but I can't delete the reference. I thus tried to change it to John, and that technically worked, but it then created a problem for verses in the OT.

It seems either there should be a way to either get rid of the ref when I am searching words, or indicate to search the entire Bible. In case it helps, here is a screenshot of my experiment.

Bildschirmfoto 2025-03-21 um 11.25.53.png

Andrew Batishko

The box at the top of the panel is not a filter for the range that you want to search. It's just your current location in the book.

If you want to filter the range being searched, you need to click the "All Passages" link just above the box with your search terms and put your desired search range in there.

Kristin

The box at the top of the panel is not a filter for the range that you want to search. It's just your current location in the book.

Hi @Andrew Batishko,

That had been my understanding as well, that Gen 1 just happened to be where I was and shouldn't matter, yet as shown in the screenshot above, if Gen is there or Jn is, it influences which OL is shown.

If you want to filter the range being searched, you need to click the "All Passages" link just above the box with your search terms and put your desired search range in there.

Could you please clarify this more? I had thought I was doing this. In order to describe my confusion, I will post a screenshot.

Bildschirmfoto 2025-03-21 um 11.51.01.png

Andrew Batishko

My apologies, you are talking about multiple things. You are correct that which secondary books are shown is a result of the current reference (the one at the top of the primary (left-most) book. That is a separate issue from what is being searched. The search only operates on primary book, and the secondary books are made visible and are navigated based on the primary.

Executing a search intentionally does not immediately change your current position in the primary book. To do that, you can either scroll the primary book, manually enter a reference in the box, or change the dropdown just above the primary text that says "Annotation" to "Search Result" and use the up and down arrow buttons to the right of that dropdown to navigate between results.

Kristin

Executing a search intentionally does not immediately change your current position in the primary book. To do that, you can either scroll the primary book, manually enter a reference in the box, or change the dropdown just above the primary text that says "Annotation" to "Search Result" and use the up and down arrow buttons to the right of that dropdown to navigate between results.

Hi @Andrew Batishko,

Thank you for clarifying this, and changing it from "Annotation" to "Search Result" fixed the issue. I tested it with "holy spirit" and it auto snapped to somewhere in the NT and showed the NA28, so I scrolled up until it got to OT hits and then it changed to the Hebrew texts. Thank you for your help.