Search possibilities

Search Possibilities in General

You can search verses by a single word (a complete word or a part of a word). You can search by several consecutive words (i.e. by a phrase). You can use wildcard characters in a text you want to search for.

You can choose between a case sensitive and a case insensitive search.

You can also combine several search fragments by "and" and by "or".

Wildcards

  • * (asterisk) means that any number (including none) of any characters can be in its place.
    E.g. "marr*husb" will find both the "a woman married to a husband" and the "unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not...".
  • _ (underscore) means any single character could be in its place.
    E.g.: "br_ad" will find both "bread" and "broad".

Search Settings

Search settings can be found using the button in the upper left corner.

  • Search for whole words (as entered)
    This setting is useful when searching by a single word (not by a phrase).
    For example, if "King" is entered for a search, then:
    • verses containing the text "LORD God walking in the garden" or "his kingdom was Babel" will be skipped if this option is on and will be selected if this option is off
    • verses containing the text "the king of Egypt" or "cry, my King, and my God" will be selected regardless of whether this option is on or off
  • Search entered words in an arbitrary order, if special characters like & | ~ are not entered
    This is set by default and provides for easy and natural searching of several word fragments in the same verse: you just enter word fragments you search for, space separated, in any order.
  • Search while ignoring accents and similar characters
    This setting is especially important for searching in Greek, Arabic, Hebrew and so on; it also helps not to miss a word in the Bible translation text where an accent is added. This setting does not slow down a search noticeably, so it is on by default and there is usually no need to turn it off.
  • Case sensitive search
    For example, if "mighty * lord" is entered for a search, then:
    • verses containing text "the Lord has a mighty and strong one" or "mighty thunderings for the Lord" will be skipped if this option is on and will be selected if this option is off
    • verses containing text "my lord: though art a mighty prince" will be selected regardless of whether this option is on or off

Searching only within color-highlighted/underlined words

The button with the paintbrush icon next to the search settings button allows you to limit a search only to words that you have highlighted or underlined in a Bible translation being searched. When this option is activated, the paintbrush button is visually highlighted by a bright underline.

This option can also help you find all the places you have highlighted in a Bible translation: activate it and run search when no text is entered in the search string. All the words that you have highlighted or underlined in a Bible translation will be shown as underlined in the search results.

Note that accidental activation of this option may lead to finding no results.

Searching in all Bible translations

The big search button words for the current Bible translation. There is also a smaller search button which allows you to search in all the downloaded Bible translations. There are two options with this: search in all the downloaded Bible translation or search only in translations in the same language. You can switch these modes by a long touch on the smaller search button. The search window title helps you remember which search option is active.

Combining of search fragments

You can enter several search fragments and combine them by & (meaning "and") or by | (meaning "or").

Combining fragments allows you to search for an arbitrary order of entered fragments. For example, when searching for "Gideon & say" both "and say, The sword of the LORD, and of Gideon..." and "Gideon send messengers, saying..." will be found.

You can place ~ before a fragment, meaning "a verse shall not contain this".

Please note that combining "by &" has a higher priority than combining "by |". You can use parentheses to change the order of fragments combining operations.

Here is an example of a search that combines several fragments and uses parentheses to change the order of fragments combining operations:
"( servant | prison) & debt & ~ borrow"
This example is aimed at finding a "servant" or "prison", which would also refer to a "debt" but wouldn't mention "borrow".