How to search for and find InfoPath information on the Internet

by S.Y.M. Wong-A-Ton | Filed under: InfoPath 2003 , InfoPath 2007

Learn how you can use online search facilities and engines, forums, and Microsoft web sites to find information about InfoPath on the Internet.

While it might seem like there isn’t much information about InfoPath on the web, it is more a matter of knowing how to search to find the information you require than it is a lack of information.

In this post, I’ll tell you which methods I use to find information about InfoPath on the web.

Searching the InfoPath newsgroup and forums

The first place you can look for information is in one of the InfoPath forums. All forums offer a search box you can use to perform a search.

For example, to search the public InfoPath newsgroup:

Go to the Public InfoPath newsgroup.
In the upper right corner you will see a text box and a button with the label Search this group.
Type your search term(s) into the text box and click the button.

Other InfoPath forums that offer a search facility are:

Using Google to search for InfoPath information

Google offers advanced operators you can use to perform very specific searches. But before I get into how you can use these, I’d like to recommend the following resources if you are unfamiliar with performing a search on Google:

Once you know how to use Google’s search tool, you can perform several searches to quickly find information. For example, if I want to search all of Microsoft’s web sites to find out whether I can use a picture box control in InfoPath browser forms, I could do the following:

Go to Google.
Type in: site:*.microsoft.com infopath picture control browser
Click Google Search.

Note: You should always include the keyword infopath as one of your search terms, otherwise your search might come up with undesired results.

When I performed the search, the 3rd listing on the first results page was: Web browser compatibility in InfoPath Forms Services.

The Microsoft Office Online web site contains a lot of information for Microsoft Office users who are non-developers. You can make the search above specific to the Microsoft Office Online web site by typing in the following search term in Google Search:

site:office.microsoft.com infopath picture control browser

Google will then return only those links to pages from Microsoft Office Online. You can do the same for all of the other Microsoft sites that contain information about InfoPath such as:

support.microsoft.com
msdn.microsoft.com
forums.microsoft.com

Here’s a breakdown of what to expect on each Microsoft web site:

MSDN - This web site is mostly for developers. So if you write code, here’s where you need to perform your search.
Office Online – This web site is for everyday users of Microsoft Office products. If you have a question about using the interface of any Office application, here’s where you have to perform your search.
Microsoft Support – This web site contains articles on solving specific problems that have been found in Microsoft products. I don’t generally recommend searching this site. If you encountered and error message, it is best to just copy the most important part of the error message, and paste it into the Google search box and do a search.
Microsoft Forums – This web site contains threads of questions people have posted and sometimes solutions that have been found. You can go directly to this site and perform a search or you can use the site:forums.microsoft.com operator on Google to perform a search on this site.

You can also use Google to find information on BizSupportOnline.NET, for example InfoPath articles that also deal with SharePoint:

site:www.bizsupportonline.net sharepoint

To restrict your search to my InfoPath blog, you could use:

site:www.bizsupportonline.net/blog sharepoint

BizSupportOnline.NET is all and only about InfoPath, so there is no need to include the word infopath in your queries, because there isn’t a single article here that does not deal with InfoPath.

If you know how to use Google to your advantage, you’ll be able to find lots of information about InfoPath on the Internet. I use Google almost every day to find answers to my questions!

Links, links, and more links

And finally, I’d like to leave you with a list of links to Microsoft web sites that are dedicated to InfoPath:

Archive or move InfoPath forms in SharePoint

Copyright: This article may not be used on web sites (whether personal or otherwise), copied, disseminated, altered, printed, published, broadcasted, or reproduced in any way without an expressed written consent of S.Y.M. Wong-A-Ton. Usage of techniques demonstrated in this article may be used within any Microsoft InfoPath project. This article is provided without any warranties. Copyright for this article is non-transferrable and remains with the author, S.Y.M. Wong-A-Ton.

How to search for and find InfoPath information on the Internet

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