Search Results Format

Menu option: Options > Preferences > Search results

Items to include in search results
Check an item to add it to the columns displayed in search results.  

Window layout
Choose whether you want to see search results on the left and documents on the right (vertical split) or search results on top and documents below (horizontal split).

Column sizes
Choose how you want dtSearch to size columns when search results open.
Size columns to fit window ensures that the columns will fit in the window without horizontal scrolling, even if some columns are too small to display all of the text.
Size columns to fit content ensures that all columns are large enough for their content.
Remember column widths tells dtSearch to remember manually-resized search results column widths.
You can click the <--> symbol in the upper left corner of search results to automatically resize columns to fit the window or the content.  Each time you click the <--> symbol it will switch between the first two methods of resizing.

Search results font
Choose the font to use for the search results list.

Synopsis color...
If the First hits in context box is checked under Items to include in search results, then dtSearch will display, after each item in the search results list, a line with the first few hits in the document in context.  Use this setting to change the background color for this line of text.

Always find the first hit when opening a document
Check this box to have dtSearch jump right to the first hit when a file is opened.

Automatically open the first document in search results
If this box is not checked, the document pane will be blank after a search until you double-click a document in search results. 

Display the PDF Title as the filename for PDF files
Display the HTML <TITLE> as the filename for HTML files
HTML and PDF files have "Title" property that usually provides a more informative name than the filename. For example, rpt2002.html might have the title "2002 Annual Report".   Check this box to see the title rather than the filename in the search results list.   (You can still see the filename for any item in search results by hovering the mouse over it and looking at the status bar at the bottom of the dtSearch window.)

Remember sort order from previous search
By default, dtSearch sorts search results according to the sort setting in the Search dialog box, which has options to sort by relevance, hit count, or date. After a search you can click the column headers in search results to sort by other document properties, such name or size. Check this box to have dtSearch remember this sort order and apply it to subsequent searches.

Use older dtSearch 7.x search results control
Check this box to use the older search results control from dtSearch versions before 2023.  Changing this setting takes effect the next time you run dtSearch.

Number of search results lists to keep
Enter the number of previous searches you want dtSearch to save, so you can see them in Search History.