Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Remember CTRL-F

“When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not.” -- Mark Twain (American Humorist, Writer and Lecturer. 1835-1910)

The K.I.S.S. principle states, “Keep It Simple, Stupid.”  Now, I’m not stupid, and if you follow this blog, neither are you.  But it is easy to forget, sometimes, how some of the simplest techniques can simplify one’s life.

CTRL-F falls into the category of easily forgotten simple techniques.

For example, when searching ScienceDirect using this search string …

Solid oxide fuel cell sulfur

… you will be presented with several hundred results, even if you limit the search to the current year.

Let’s say you are in a hurry.  You want to view only those results that have the word sulfur somewhere in the little snippet that appears on the results list.

What do you do? Hit CTRL-F.  This command opens up a search box where you can type in the word sulfur.  Click “Next” to jump to each entry on the page that contains the word.   The word you seek will be highlighted in each entry.


The same technique works when you are searching patents.  For example, search Google Patents (http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en) using the same search string as above, i.e. …

Solid oxide fuel cell sulfur

The results include the following …

High Temperature Fuel Cell System and Method of Operating the Same
Inventors: Swaminathan Venkataraman, Matthias Gottmann, John Finn
Original Assignee: Bloom Energy Corporation

Now, patents are a rich source of technical information.  But finding the part of the patent that most interests you can be very time consuming.  How can you focus on those parts of the patent that pertain to sulfur?  Once again, CTRL-F to the rescue!


CTRL-F works for those PDF files that open up without the tool ribbon at the top.  Hit CTRL-F and the PDF search box opens up.

This blog is all about making it easy to find technical literature on the Web … many of the tips may be old news to you, but remember the newer member of your team.  Help them get up to speed by suggesting they follow the Desulfurization Blog (http://www.desulf.blogspot.com/)

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