After a search, dtSearch highlights the wrong words in a retrieved fileLast Reviewed: March 20, 2002
Article: DTS0112
Applies to: dtSearch 6, dtSearch 7
After a search, dtSearch highlights the wrong words in a retrieved file
No hits are highlighted in a file
The document was modified since it was indexed
An indexing setting was changed since the document was indexed
The document was indexed with a different version of dtSearch
The document was indexed with the dtSearch Spider, and you are searching using dtSearch Web
Browser security settings disabled JavaScript
(1) Perform the search in dtSearch Desktop
(2) After the search, click on the document that shows incorrect hit highlighting
(3) Click View > Document Information, or press Ctrl-Y.
A diagnostic dialog box will appear with a brief explanation of possible reasons for the hit highlighting problems.
To resolve the problem, update the index you searched with the "Clear index before adding documents" box checked. This will completely rebuild the index, ensuring that the index will reflect current indexing settings.
If the diagnostic dialog box does not identify any problems, check the search options you used in the search, and try repeating the search with no search options enabled. Synonym searching, phonic searching, and higher levels of fuzziness (3 or more) can generate a large number of word matches. If two of these search features are combined, the search may be so broad as to be useless. To see the words matched by different combinations of search features, click the Browse Words button in the Search Dialog box and try searching for words in your search request with various combinations of search features.
Additional information
After a search, dtSearch uses information in the index that you searched to highlight hits in a document. The index stores the location of each word in your documents, and dtSearch uses these word locations for hit highlighting. If the information in the index is out of date, the wrong words will be highlighted. Rebuilding the index fixes the problem by updating the index so that it is consistent with your documents and your dtSearch version and settings.
A document can be retrieved with no words highlighted if the hits matched are in document properties that are not displayed.
PDF files: Open the PDF file in Adobe Reader and click Document Properties > Summary or press Ctrl+D (Ctrl+D will also work inside the dtSearch viewer) to see summary information fields that may contain your search terms.
HTML files: Right-click the HTML file in dtSearch, or in your web browser, and select "View Source". Look for a "META" tag containing the words you searched for.
Document properties in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and WordPerfect files will appear in dtSearch at the end of the document.
Try the same search in dtSearch Desktop. If no hits are highlighted in dtSearch Desktop, refer the to the dtSearch Desktop troubleshooting steps above.
If hits are highlighted in dtSearch Desktop and not in dtSearch Web, there are two possible reasons:
(1) The documents were indexed using the dtSearch Spider, and one of the following applies: (a) you have dtSearch Web 6.10 or earlier (older versions of dtSearch Web could not highlight hits in documents indexed using the dtSearch Spider); (b) the "HighlightHttpDocs" setting is disabled in the dtsearch_options.html file is either absent or set to 0, or (c) dtSearch Web was unable to download the page to apply hit highlight markings to it.
(2) Check the search results template file (the _options.html file generated by dtSearch Web Setup) to see if it is set to generate hit highlighted links or direct links. Change the %%DirectLink%% symbol to %%HighlightLink%% to switch to highlight links. See the "Generated Files" topic in dtSearch_Web.chm for more information on the _options.html file.
If the documents are PDF files, you have to use the Next Hit/Prev Hit buttons on the Acrobat Reader toolbar rather than the dtSearch Next Hit/Prev Hit buttons. For more information, see Troubleshooting PDF hit highlighting problems in dtSearch Desktop.
If the problem affects other documents, and if you can see hit highlighting but clicking the Next Hit button has no effect, your Internet Explorer security settings may have disabled JavaScript. dtSearch Desktop and dtSearch Web use JavaScript to provide hit navigation.
1. Check to see if JavaScript is disabled
To check JavaScript, click on this link: http://support.dtsearch.com/testjavascript.html
If you can click the button and get a message to appear, JavaScript is working. If not, JavaScript is disabled.
2. Fix the JavaScript setting in Internet Explorer.
In dtSearch Desktop, the security settings for the "Internet Zone" apply to dtSearch Desktop, so if JavaScript is disabled in the Internet Zone settings, dtSearch Desktop will not be able to implement Next Hit/Prev Hit. Setting the security settings to any of the predefined levels (low, medium, or high) will enable JavaScript.
3. Repair Internet Explorer
Sometimes Internet Explorer loses its JavaScript support files after JavaScript has been disabled. To repair Internet Explorer
Click Start > Settings > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs
Find "Microsoft Internet Explorer" in the list and double-click it.
In the window that opens, choose "Repair" and click OK.
4. Install a newer version of Internet Explorer
Alternatively, or if step 3 does not help, install the latest version of Internet Explorer. The dtSearch CD includes Internet Explorer in the other\msie folder.