Searching for .doc and .docx files

lesley steinitz
I can't find a way of searching on the content of docx files that are saved in zotero as attachments. While my pdfs (also attachments) are 'indexed' and searchable I cannot find a way of doing the same (indexing and searching) my .docx files. I'm using v4.0.3 in Firefox 19.0.2 on a Mac. I have tried converting them to .doc files, but this didn't solve it. Any ideas? These files are my notes, and therefore I often need to search for them by their content. Sherlock will not search for the files stored wherever it is that zotero puts them.
Any help on this would be much appreciated.
  • adamsmith
    Zotero can't index Word files.
    You can probably tell Sherlock to index the Zotero data folder
    http://www.zotero.org/support/zotero_data
    but a mac user would need to tell you how.
  • dstillman
    Spotlight, not Sherlock (which was something else, a long time ago).

    If you move the data directory to a custom location such as Documents, Spotlight will index it.

    (I'm not sure if it was always the case that Spotlight doesn't index within Application Support—I'd be surprised if we put it there with that being the case—but it's certainly not ideal. We should really either get Spotlight to index the current location or move the data directory to Documents by default.)
  • lesley steinitz
    Thanks Dan & Adam. Moving it wont break Zotero? I can't get the Mac (whatever the tool is called!)to index the .docx files in the folder where it is now - tried that.
  • dstillman
    edited April 7, 2013
    You can't just move it, but you can change the setting and then move the directory:

    http://www.zotero.org/support/preferences/advanced#data_directory_location

    (This is in the Advanced pane of the Zotero preferences.)
  • mronkko
    One thing that I would love to have is a spotlight plugin for Zotero, but I do not know if it is technically feasible.
  • Gracile
    (there's this old ticket: https://www.zotero.org/trac/ticket/1102 )
  • mronkko
    User extensible search is not what I meant, although that would be valuable too. What I was referring to was searching for Zotero items using Spotlight. (Like you can search for mail messages.)
  • Gracile
    (mronkko: my post was directed to the OP's request)

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