# Recoll user manual
Search tips, shortcuts

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#### Working with phrases and proximity

Phrases and Proximity searches. A phrase can be looked for by enclosing it in double quotes. Example: `"user manual"` will look only for occurrences of `user` immediately followed by `manual`. You can use the This phrase field of the advanced search dialog to the same effect. Phrases can be entered along simple terms in all simple or advanced search entry fields (except This exact phrase).

AutoPhrases. This option can be set in the preferences dialog. If it is set, a phrase will be automatically built and added to simple searches when looking for `Any terms`. This will not change radically the results, but will give a relevance boost to the results where the search terms appear as a phrase. Ie: searching for `virtual reality` will still find all documents where either `virtual` or `reality` or both appear, but those which contain `virtual reality` should appear sooner in the list.

Phrase searches can strongly slow down a query if most of the terms in the phrase are common. This is why the `autophrase` option is off by default for Recoll versions before 1.17. As of version 1.17, `autophrase` is on by default, but very common terms will be removed from the constructed phrase. The removal threshold can be adjusted from the search preferences.

Phrases and abbreviations. As of Recoll version 1.17, dotted abbreviations like `I.B.M.` are also automatically indexed as a word without the dots: `IBM`. Searching for the word inside a phrase (ie: `"the IBM company"`) will only match the dotted abrreviation if you increase the phrase slack (using the advanced search panel control, or the `o` query language modifier). Literal occurences of the word will be matched normally.

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