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How to Search for Documents

Essal Office has a powerful full-text search engine. Every document you upload is processed through OCR (optical character recognition) to extract all readable text. That text is indexed and becomes instantly searchable — you can find a document by words that appear inside it, not just in its title.

Using the Search Bar

The search bar is always visible at the top of the document list. To search:

  1. Click the search bar
  2. Type one or more words
  3. Press Enter or wait for results to update

Results update as you type. Every document whose title, content, correspondent name, document type, or tags contain the search terms will appear.

How Search Works

Essal Office searches across all indexed fields simultaneously:

  • Searched field: Document title
  • Examples: "Acme Invoice March 2026"


  • Searched field: Document content (OCR text)
  • Examples: Words appearing anywhere in the scanned text


  • Searched field: Correspondent name
  • Examples: "Acme Supplies"


  • Searched field: Document type name
  • Examples: "Invoice", "Contract"


  • Searched field: Tag names
  • Examples: "Finance", "Pending Payment"


  • Searched field: Custom field values
  • Examples: Depends on field type

Searching for Multiple Words

By default, a search for acme invoice returns documents that contain either acme or invoice. To narrow results to documents containing both words, use the advanced search syntax.

Tips for Effective Searching

  • Search for words likely to be unique to the document you need — an invoice number, a person's name, a product reference
  • If results are too broad, add more words or combine with filters (see below)
  • If results are too narrow (no results), check that the words actually appear in the document's Content tab — OCR errors may have distorted a word

Combining Search with Filters

The search bar and filter panel work together. You can type a search query and simultaneously apply filters for correspondent, document type, date range, or tags. The results show only documents that match all active conditions.

This combination is very powerful: search for a keyword to narrow content, then filter by date range or correspondent to get to exactly the document you need.

Search Is Case-Insensitive

You do not need to match capitalisation. Searching for invoice returns documents containing Invoice, INVOICE, or invoice.