Google Advanced Search tips

Search Tips & Shortcuts

To search for a specific phrase, put the words in quotations.
Eg., "It was the best of times"

To include synonyms in your search, place a tilde (~) directly in front of your search term.
Eg., ~lawyer (will find results for lawyer, legal, law, law firm, etc.)

To find results in a specific format, type in your search terms and then "file type:" and the file format extension.
Eg., 1040 file type: pdf
Eg., "fair labor standards" file type: ppt

Here are some of the file format extensions:
Adobe Portable Document Format (pdf)
Adobe PostScript (ps)
Microsoft Excel (xls)
Microsoft PowerPoint (ppt)
Rich Text Format (rtf)
Shockwave Flash (swf)

To check the status of a U.S. flight, type the name of the airline and the flight number.
ex. United 134

To locate a U.S. patent, type the word "patent" and the patent number.
Eg., patent 6979284

To locate published information about a person, type the first and last name in quotations.
Eg., "John Blakes"