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Complete listing of June 1996 reviews
By James Alan Miller
Those of us lacking photographic memories often have trouble remembering exactly where in \HAYSTACK we put NEEDLE.DOC. For us, a search tool like DT Software's dtSearch 4.0 can be a powerful, flexible lifesaver.
This program lets you search your data files, indexed or not, in many different combinations, and across multiple indexes, drives and directories. DtSearch can locate a file by phonic (sounds-like), stemming (where the program finds all forms of a word), natural language or 10-level fuzzy logic searching. You can search for phrases, and use wildcards, Boolean language, proximity, field, numeric range, as well as file name and date.
DtSearch starts by indexing the words in your PC's files, which lets it search megabytes of data in seconds. You can create separate, named indexes of different directories and drives using the program's simple graphical interface. Be prepared for a long wait if you're indexing hundreds of megabytes.
The program will look through zipped archive files and OLE 2.0 compound documents, and scans documents directly using Xerox's TextBridge OCR.
Once the search is completed, you can scan the results, double-click on hits to view the actual document, and see the number of hits per document and the context of the hit. DtSearch's built-in graphics viewer checks graphics images, but the viewer's image quality is poor.
This program's muscle will appeal to power users. Fortunately, its ease of use makes it suitable for everybody.
Info File
dtSearch 4.0
Price: $199; LAN, 5 users, $800
Pros: Flexible search parameters; installation
Cons: Graphics viewer
Platforms: Windows 95, NT
Disk Space: 2MB
RAM: 8MB
DT Software
800-IT-FINDS, 703-413-3670
WinMag Box Score 4.0
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