Finding Data Sheets and Service Manuals

[TechJunkie]

When it comes to finding datasheets, parts manuals, service manuals and more I have found over time that using Google with advanced search operators can provide better results than even the best archive datasheet web archive. There are many advance search operators one can use in Google but the best and most useful one for finding specifications, datasheets, service manuals and etc. is the "filetype:". With this operator I can almost always find the datasheet or part information even for the most obscure parts that many of the archive sites don't have. Here is an example of a search for lets say an OP amp such as an LM324.

In the Google search box type this:   filetype:pdf lm324

This format can be used for all sorts of documents just by adding or deleting text operators.

The command: "filetype:" then the actual filetype your are looking for such as PDF, TXT, DOC, XLS, and etc., Add a space and then type the search term of what your are looking for such as the "LM234". You can use other operators in this line of text to further tweak the results such as -/+, OR, intitle:, intext:, inurl:, site: and more. Here would be an example of a more advanced operator search. We will use the LM324 but want to look for results from a particular website or domain.

filetype:pdf site:fairchildsemi.com lm324

The above statement will look for a PDF file with the "LM324" in the description on the Fairchild Semiconductor website "fairchildsemi.com".

filetype:pdf site:fairchildsemi.com lm324 -MOSFET

The above statement does the same as the previous but adds the "-" operator which is find everything in the statement except items that have the term MOSFET in it.

You can add or remove any of these and more to tweak your search.

Time and time again, I fall back to this option after trying to use the datasheet archive site only to come up dry for hard to find datasheets. It really does not take much to get used to this and just type these operators in on the fly and find what you want fast.

Here is the link to all operators and detailed descriptions as to what they do. I think you will find these will increase your hunting for data, service and spec sheets by double or more than archive sites and also let you find even the most difficult datasheets. Happy hunting!

http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html