Wild Cards can be used in program-wide searches using the Search tab to incorporate variable content.  Wild Cards do not work on in-document searching (using CTRL + F or the Binocular icon), or for finding folders.


Common- Root Wild Card


An asterisk (*) can be used as a “wild card” to replace any number of characters sharing a common root. This is useful when searching for a word that may come in a number of forms, or may have a number of spellings.


Consider the following examples:


  • Searching for caus* will return words beginning with “caus”, such as cause, caused, causation, causality, caustic, etc. Searching for “cause” will not find occurrences of the word because.
  • Searching for *cause will return words ending with “cause”, such as cause and because.
  • Searching for s*s will return words starting and ending with the letter “s”, such as statistics, stats, states, silliness, etc.


You cannot use the asterisk twice in a word. Only the first asterisk is recognized. For example:


  • Searching for *ate* will only return words ending in “ate”. For example, rate, state and late, but not rates.



Single Character Wild Card


A question mark (?) may be used as a “wild card” to replace a specific character  in a word. It will replace only one letter at a time, in the exact location within the word. You may use more than one question mark within the same query.


  • Searching for L?W will find words like law and low, but not words like Laidlaw.
  • Searching for bur??r will find words like burger and bursar, but not burglar.