TFM SEARCH

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N.B.: Diacriticals (i.e., accent marks) may be entered directly in the search fields (in ISO-8859-1 [Latin-1]) or as HTML entity codes. For a table from which the codes or characters can be copied, click here. Please see below for additional important notes about searching this database.

How to Use the Search Feature

• The three Term boxes allow you to enter full words or strings (i.e., a sequence of letters that does not form a complete word) you would like to find in the TFM. Press the "tab" key or use the mouse to click in the first field to bring up a cursor; press the "tab" key to toggle between the boxes. Note: the search feature is not case sensitive.

• Only a single word or string may be entered in each Term box. If multiple words are entered in any box, they will be interpreted as separate search terms linked by the operator OR.

• The selectable field between the term boxes allows you to choose a Boolean operator ("and," "or," "andnot") to further narrow your search. Use the mouse to make your selection.

• The selectable menu following "Search which centuries?" allows you to choose a chronological period within which you wish to restrict your search; select "All" if you wish to search all the files in the database. Use the mouse to make your selection.

• You can choose a maximum number of files that will display on each page of results by changing the number in that box.

• You can choose a number of lines of context that will surround each "hit" in the display by changing the number in that box.

• Use the mouse to press the Submit Query button to activate your search.

• Press the Clear Entries button to remove the words or strings you have entered.

Hints for Searching

• The asterisk (*), which may be employed only as the final character in a field, is extremely useful for creating a "wildcard" search, and in cases where a sufficiently distinctive string is possible, its use is highly recommended because of the wide variety of spellings and diacritical marks that appear in early French texts. When added as the final character in a field, the asterisk tells the computer to find words that begin with the string of letters but may end in all possible ways. For example, the search term "ajoutée" will locate records that contain only that specific word. On the other hand, the search term "ajo*" will locate records that contain such words as "ajoutée," "ajoûtée," "ajouter," "ajoutez," etc.

  "False hits" will occasionally be returned if a diacritical mark appearing on the second or subsequent letter of a search string might form in its own right a distinctive string with the following sequence of letters (e.g., "décou*" would match "découvrir, but letters 2-5 could also match "écouter"). In these cases, the bibliographic record for the file will be displayed, but there will be no "hits." These "false hits" may be safely ignored.