Subscribe Via Email
Google Searching for Various Types of Files
Normally when you perform a Google search, you expect to see a list of webpages in your results. However, Google also has the amazing ability to search for various filetypes. Let’s suppose you want to learn more about global warming, and you want to see a nice slideshow about global warming without any ads. That’s easy enough to do! All you have to do is search by filetype. In this case you would want to search for Microsoft Powerpoint files, which are slideshows.
In order to perform a search for global warming and restrict your results to Microsoft Powerpoint files, you need to type the following into a Google search box:
filetype:ppt global warming
You will get search results similar to the ones below:
The filetype:ppt tells Google that you want to restrict your results to only files that have the extension of ppt, which would be Microsoft Powerpoint files. Then, all Google does is look for the two keywords global and warming in Powerpoint files.
Now you are free to open up the Powerpoint files. Be sure to scan them with a virus scanner just to be sure that they aren’t infected. Another alternative is to click on the View as HTML link right next to the search results. This will open them in your web browser, and is one way to view the files if you don’t have MIcrosoft PowerPoint installed on your computer.
Another way to view the files for free is to download the Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer, or the free and open productivity suite, OpenOffice.org.
Finding Useful Spreadsheets
Let’s say that you want to buy a home, and want to calculate how much home you can afford. One way to do this would be to make your own spreadsheet in MIcrosoft Excel. Another way to do it would be to search on Google and see if anyone has already made a similar spreadsheet that you can use. Let’s see what happens when you type the following into a Google search box:
filetype:xls home mortgage calculator
You end up with search results akin to these:
I browsed through the results and found one that looked like what I wanted, and after opening it and playing with it, you can see that it turned out to be fairly useful:
Worksheet Courtesy of stephenlnelson.com
Finding a Tax Form
Let’s say that you’ve procrastinated your tax return and want to find the 2007 1040EZ tax form. All you have to do is search for the following in the Google search box:
filetype:pdf 1040EZ
Just like magic, the first search result is exactly what you were looking for! In cases like these, just make sure that the file comes from the proper source. In this case www.irs.gove would be a reputable source from which to obtain this form.
Other Filetypes
What other filetypes can Google search? Google currently searches the following thirteen basic filetypes:
- Adobe Portable Document Format (pdf)
- Adobe PostScript (ps)
- Lotus 1-2-3 (wk1, wk2, wk3, wk4, wk5, wki, wks, wku)
- Lotus WordPro (lwp)
- MacWrite (mw)
- Microsoft Excel (xls)
- Microsoft PowerPoint (ppt)
- Microsoft Word (doc)
- Microsoft Works (wks, wps, wdb)
- Microsoft Write (wri)
- Rich Text Format (rtf)
- Shockwave Flash (swf)
- Text (ans, txt)
However, this list could grow as more filetypes become common. Google says the following about this:
Google is always looking to expand the range of content it searches, so expect to see other file types added to the service over time as Google discovers them on the Web.
If you have any questions or comments about searching by filetype, just post them below!
Comments
Leave a Reply
Poll: Favorite Search Engine
Loading ...