Get more out of your SOLIDWORKS PDM Search Tool

Are you a searcher or an explorer? If you’re a searcher then you’re in luck as SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional comes equipped with a powerful search tool, that can minimize the time it takes to locate a file or folder.

Let’s start with a look at some of the basic commands located within the search tool:

Search Commands

Using Wildcards

Let’s get a bit more advanced and look at how we can use wildcards to squeeze even more functionality out of this tool.

Wildcard = a character that will match any character or sequence of characters in a search.

By default the search will look for anything matching the parameters.  For example; if I search Jav, it will search for any folder or file name containing ‘Jav’:

Search All

Using the asterisk wildcard, we can search for specific file types containing our search parameter.  For example; *jav*.sldasm will look for any SOLIDWORKS Assembly with ‘Jav’ as part of the filename:

Search .SLDASM

Need to look for a specific word document, but unsure whether it’s .doc or .docx filetype? *Jav*doc*

Search .doc & .docx

Learn more about creating custom SOLIDWORKS PDM search cards

Attend our SOLIDWORKS PDM Administration training course to learn how to create and manage a PDM vault. The course is available live online or in a classroom near you.