Spotlight to search spesific filetypes?

[Dale Cooper]

Is there any way to search for spesific filetypes, like .doc, .pages etc., in the same ways as you can search for pdf's with the KINDDF command? And is there a way to make .pages-files/packages act like files instead of folders when using the Automator?
Thanks.

 

[howesey]

Just type .doc or .jpg for example.


So, if you want to find a word file with 'apple', you just type

.doc apple


for example.

 

[dr_lha]

That doesn't work, it doesn't narrow the search to only .doc files. Sadly there doesn't seem to be a "KIND" keyword for a Word document.

The only way I can figure out to do this is through a smart folder where you can set the filetype.

Clearly Spotlight, great as it is, has some room for improvement!

 

[howesey]

Wfm.

 

[gauchogolfer]

This might be a bit of a pain, but you could try adding Spotlight comments to all of your .doc files. Maybe an Automator action that you could apply once to all of the .doc files, then search for them later. Other than that, I can't think of a good way to do this.

I really hope that future versions of Spotlight incorporate a Boolean approach, with options for AND, OR, etc.

 

[dr_lha]

Wfm.

Huh?

EDIT: Oh you mean "works for me". Well it may do, but it doesn't narrow down the search. For example on my Spotlight typing ".doc apple" brings up tons of random crap, very few of which are word documents.

 

[gauchogolfer]

Huh?

EDIT: Oh you mean "works for me". Well it may do, but it doesn't narrow down the search. For example on my Spotlight typing ".doc apple" brings up tons of random crap, very few of which are word documents.

I think the issue is that Spotlight treats separate words with an OR separator, so you'll get both .doc files, plus anything with "apple" in it, which is bound to be just about everything. Like I said above, extra Boolean support would be great, and wouldn't have to be too complicated. I think people understand concepts like: All files of type xxx that have "my name" but NOT "their name". Currently spotlight just can't do it.

 

[Peace]

The easiest way to find a file extension or for that matter any document with a word is to type ".doc
That will show you all files with .doc

It's important to use the leading quotation mark only.Do not encase the search term in quotes.

 

[Dale Cooper]

Well, typing ".doc works for word documents, which is great. But it doesn't seem to work for .pages-files (at least not for me). Does anyone know why?

 

[dr_lha]

The easiest way to find a file extension or for that matter any document with a word is to type ".doc
That will show you all files with .doc

It's important to use the leading quotation mark only.Do not encase the search term in quotes.

Hey, great tip. That works.