- Simple searches retrieve text strings and/or codes from data. Frequently, the search results can be displayed in their context.
- Boolean searches offer various combinations of searches using the Boolean operators AND, OR/XOR, and NOT across various section of codes or texts.
- Placeholder searches allow you to use placeholders for certain characters, e.g. numerals, paragraph marks, etc., in text searches.
- Proximity searches are similar to Boolean searches. These searches allow you to retrieve combinations of two or more text strings and/or codes, which occur in a definable proximity to each other.
- Fuzzy searches or "approximation searches" are exclusive to NVivo, allow you to perform fuzzy searches that retrieve textual data. Such type of search is particularly useful, if you expect your data to contain typographic errors.
- Combination searches allow you to combine any of the above searches with Boolean operators.
NVivo's search functions, which owe much to earlier NUD*IST releases, no longer beat the competition "hands down" (Weitzman and Miles 1995: 248), but NVivo still is the only program that allows for fuzzy searches. ATLAS.ti offers sophisticated GREP searches, which have supported UNIX users since the early 1970s.
None of the search tools for text, however, are as versatile as the ones the freeware InfoRapid Search&Replace, which processes a wide variety of text formats from plain text to Adobe Acrobat files, offers. Especially in conjunction with the fuzzy searches of SimFuz,1 another freeware, this little helper application, which also features an add-on data file management system (InfoRapid Cardfile), offers a viable alternative for methodologies — such as some brands of Discourse Analysis — that do not require any coding of data.
Below table overviews the search capabilities of all programs.
| Boolean Searches | Proximity Searches | Placeholder Searches | Fuzzy Searches | Search Combinations | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ATLAS.ti 5.0 | text: no; codes: and, or, not |
codes only: various | GREP commands | no | flexible, but only with respect to codes |
| E6 | … | … | … | … | … |
| HyperRESEARCH 2.6 | text: no; codes: and, or, not |
… | … | no | searches for codes are combinable |
| Kwalitan 5.09 | and, or, not2 | no | no | no | through iterative filters |
| MAXqda 2 | Text: and, or Codes: and, or, not |
text & codes: fixed unit (paragraphs) |
no | no | very limited |
| N6 | Text: no Codes: and, or, not |
codes only: various | multiple placeholders | no | flexible, but some limitations apply |
| NVivo 2 | and, or, not | both text and codes; flexible | multiple placeholders | basic | flexible, but some limitations apply |
| QDA Miner 1.0.15 | text only: and, or, not | codes only: various | standard wildcards and character ranges | no | any combination |
| Qualrus 2.0.4.0 | and, or, not | requires use of scripting language | requires use of scripting language | no | limited to one Boolean operator |
| TAMS 2.50b5 | … | … | … | … | … |
| Non-CAQDAS benchmark programs | |||||
| InfoRapid Search&Replace 3.1e | and, or, not | highly customizable | multiple placeholders | no | any |
| Transana 1.22 | … | … | … | … | … |
Weitzman, Eben A. and , Matthew B. Miles. 1995. Computer Programs for Qualitative Data Analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
1 The (now defunct) freeware SimFuz (Download 131K) performs sophisticated fuzzy searches on text, HTML, and older Word™ files.
2 Searches in Kwalitan are implemented through filters.