search function not very successful

I'm working with many documents in a group, and need to find items, generally by Author or Title. I understand I can perform a sort in the middle pane which will sort items by the first word in that field. Somewhat useful for Title, but not for Author since I need to know I am searching all authors, not just first-in-list.
Have successfully done Advanced searches for words in title, which is basically working as expected. Have had bad luck however with author (i.e. Creator) searches. Zotero seems to be searching the first names of authors (which I don't want to bother with, especially because naming protocol varies, sometimes using first names, sometimes initials, sometimes first and middle initials, etc). As mentioned, a simple column sort will sort by the last name, but only one author per article.
Help
  • It isn't clear to me why the advanced search does not work for you. Can you be more explicit? One work-around to avoid hits for first names is to insert a space before the name. So, search for creators that contain " David".
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