Basic Search:

One of the quickest and most effective ways to locate the information you're looking for is to use our search engine. The search engine will help you quickly find specific names, titles and terms from a wide variety of Ontario government sites.

To use the search engine, just type a word or phrase into the "Search" box, then click the "Search" button. It's that simple. When the process is complete, you will receive a list of documents that contain the key words or phrases included in your search criteria. It will even suggest alternative spellings in case you mistyped your entry!

If you'd like to perform specialized, or more refined searches, you can do so by using our Advanced Search. For help using the advanced functionality, review our Advanced Search Help.

Quick Tip: If you find that you get too many results with your first attempt, just go back and add some more specific keywords or terms. You'll get more precise results by typing "birth certificate registration" than, for example, just "certificate".

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Advanced Search:

Search for keyword matches

Select one of the following choices from the pull-down menu:

All of the words - Will return matches with all of the keywords in the search box.

Any of the words - Will return matches with one or more words in the box.

The exact phrase - Will match your word or phrase exactly.

Select Document Format

Search for keywords within documents in certain formats. From the pull-down menu, you can choose HTML, Adobe PDF, XML, Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, text or every other format. Choosing "Every format" will search all these formats.

Check spelling

Check this box if you're not sure how to spell your keyword(s). The search engine will offer suggestions to help correct your spelling. The "Check Spelling" box is checked as a default.

Select language

Use the pull-down box to search for results in either English, French or "All languages".

Search for word variations

Check this box if you want variations of your keyword(s). Many words have endings (suffixes) that make new words, such as vote and voting.

Limit Search to a Selected Web Site

Select from the options available in the pull-down menu to limit your search to a specific Ministry site. The search engine will search all sites as a default.

Display Options

Select from 10 - 100 in the pull-down menu to choose how many search results will be returned per page.

Include or exclude these words from results

You may determine precisely which words, phrases or web addresses that you want included or excluded from your search results.

Include - Will return all pages with the keywords or URLs you type in the box. This search engine Will discard pages that don't contain these words.

Exclude - Will list the pages with these keywords first.

You may also include or exclude words or phrases in certain parts of the document.

In the text - includes or excludes keywords contained in the text of the page.

In the title - includes or excludes keywords contained in the title of the page only (the title you see near the top of the page).

In the URL - includes or excludes keywords contained within the full web address of a page. Example: Search for "news" in the URL /english/news/index.html.

Sort Options

Select from the available options in the pull-down menu to choose how your search results will be sorted. Results can be sorted by relevance (default option), date (ascending or descending), or size (ascending or descending).

Refine results

Pages updated - Use the pull-down menu to limit the time period of the documents you want returned. Options available are documents updated within the past month, three months, six months, nine months and one year.

Document size - Use the pull-down boxes to limit the size of the documents you want returned. You can limit the size by bytes, kilobytes or megabytes. If you don't make selections, all documents will be returned.

Type of Summary

If you'd like to highlight your keywords in the search return, check "Find phrase on page". Check "Page summary" for a page description.

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Questions or Comments

If you have any further questions or comments you'd like to make, please use our online feedback form.

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