# Complex search in paperpile and metaPDF **URL:** \ **Category:** Feature requests\ **Created:** [January 18, 2016, 2:55am UTC](https://forum.paperpile.com/t/complex-search-in-paperpile-and-metapdf/986 "2016-01-18T02:55:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![surchs](https://forum.paperpile.com/user_avatar/forum.paperpile.com/surchs/32/89_2.png) [@surchs](https://forum.paperpile.com/u/surchs)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 2:55am UTC](https://forum.paperpile.com/t/complex-search-in-paperpile-and-metapdf/986/1 "2016-01-18T02:55:05Z")
MetaPDF currently does not provide an option to search for matches as whole words or to respect capitalization. I have tried to get around this by having a leading space to my search term (hoping that most pattern matches would have the whole word) but that is unfortunately ignored. Would be good to have: 1. Leading or trailing spaces in search terms respected; as a workaround until: 2. more complex search options like whole word or capitalization sensitive implemented Edit: The paperpile app would also benefit from more complex search options, particularly the option to search for multi-word patterns. Right now they are treated as separate search terms which will, if they are common in the library, give way too many results as opposed to match the one article that has them in this weird order (but of which I forgot the author name or other info piece) I changed the topic to reflect that this applies to the app too ---
**Author:** ![burgerga](https://forum.paperpile.com/user_avatar/forum.paperpile.com/burgerga/32/1330_2.png) [@burgerga](https://forum.paperpile.com/u/burgerga)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 7:58am UTC](https://forum.paperpile.com/t/complex-search-in-paperpile-and-metapdf/986/2 "2017-01-18T07:58:23Z")
What I also would like is to be able to search for 2 character strings, whereas currently, search kicks in only at 3 characters. My use case is as follows: 1. I click a numbered reference, eg 22 2. I get taken to the list of references 3. Now I want to go back to where I was reading, I search for 22 but nothing happens How I do it now: I look up the citation style and search for “22]” or “22)”, but then “22,23” isn’t picked up. ---
**Author:** ![jason](https://forum.paperpile.com/user_avatar/forum.paperpile.com/jason/32/445_2.png) [@jason](https://forum.paperpile.com/u/jason)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 7:03pm UTC](https://forum.paperpile.com/t/complex-search-in-paperpile-and-metapdf/986/3 "2017-01-18T19:03:30Z")
I am not sure we can add support for more complex search unless the interest for it is more widespread. With regard to searching for 2-character strings, it is mostly a barrier we put in place so we do not run a computationally intensive search as soon as you type / do not run searches which will return many many hits. I do see the problem with getting to the references. We could in theory allow shorter search strings for numeric characters, although we run the risk of getting many false-positives in tables. ---
**Author:** ![burgerga](https://forum.paperpile.com/user_avatar/forum.paperpile.com/burgerga/32/1330_2.png) [@burgerga](https://forum.paperpile.com/u/burgerga)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 8:03pm UTC](https://forum.paperpile.com/t/complex-search-in-paperpile-and-metapdf/986/4 "2017-01-18T20:03:25Z")
Yes, Chrome’s native viewer does support 1 and 2 character searches, and you can end up in the header and footer of the page or the reference DOIs relatively quickly, but I think it’s worth it 😉 ---
**Author:** ![burgerga](https://forum.paperpile.com/user_avatar/forum.paperpile.com/burgerga/32/1330_2.png) [@burgerga](https://forum.paperpile.com/u/burgerga)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2017, 10:03pm UTC](https://forum.paperpile.com/t/complex-search-in-paperpile-and-metapdf/986/5 "2017-01-24T22:03:46Z")
I found another use case, I have a paper written by “Li and Li”, which makes it very hard to find in the paperpile app 😛 > **[Epithelial–mesenchymal transition in human cancer: Comprehensive reprogramming...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0163725815000054)** > > The epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a developmental process that is important for embryogenesis, wound healing, organ fibrosis, and cancer … ---
**Author:** ![jason](https://forum.paperpile.com/user_avatar/forum.paperpile.com/jason/32/445_2.png) [@jason](https://forum.paperpile.com/u/jason)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2017, 10:45pm UTC](https://forum.paperpile.com/t/complex-search-in-paperpile-and-metapdf/986/6 "2017-01-24T22:45:54Z")
We are going to change it so that one- and two-character searches can be triggered with an enter key.