The Contents Tab

File type

Here you can specify the type of file you are searching for.

Containing text

Type in the word or phrase the files you are searching for must contain. Note: If you do this in a large folder or checked Include subfolders in the Name/Location tab, this may take a long time.

Note

This option will not work for all files listed under File type. Only the following file types are supported:

  • Text files, e.g. source code and README files

  • KWord >= 1.2

  • KPresenter >= 1.2

  • KSpread >= 1.2

  • OpenOffice.org Writer / LibreOffice Writer

  • OpenOffice.org Impress / LibreOffice Impress

  • OpenOffice.org Calc / LibreOffice Calc

  • Calligra Words

  • Calligra Sheets

  • Calligra Stage

Case sensitive

If you enable this option, KFind will only find text in files with the exact case matching, e.g. MARC will only match MARC, not Marc.

Regular expression

If you have installed the KRegExpEditor tool from playground/utils on the KDE git server, you will have this additional option. Enabling it will allow you to search for a regexp or regular expression. A regexp is a way to specify conditions for your search, and they can be very complex, and equally they can be very powerful. If you are unfamiliar with regular expressions, you can choose Edit button to open KRegExpEditor. This tool allows you to construct your set of conditions graphically, and then generates the expression for you.

KRegExpEditor is a very useful tool, and can be used from within many KDE applications other than KFind. You can find more information from within its own help file.

Include binary files

This lets you search in any type of file, even those that usually do not contain text (for example program files and images).

Search metainfo sections

These two fields can be used to search within files' specific comments or metainfo.

Here are some major cases:

  • Video files (avi, mp4, etc.): specify some tag (Bitrate, Duration, etc.) and its value to find items which have the specified parameter value in their metadata.

  • Images (png, jpeg, etc.): specify some tag (Width, Height, etc.) and its value to find items which have the specified parameter value in their metadata.

  • Audio files (mp3, flac, etc.): specify some tag (Title, Album, etc.) and its value to find items which have the specified parameter value in their metadata.

  • Ebooks (epub, azw, fb2, etc.): specify some tag (Title, Author, etc.) and its value to find items which have the specified parameter value in their metadata.

Note

If there is a translation of the tags into your language you can use the localized tag names in the search criterion.