How to find a document by describing it

A colleague asks for “that proposal we did for the museum, the one with the phased rollout”. You know it exists. It might be a Word file on the shared drive, a Google Doc someone started, a Notion page, or a slide deck that ended up being the real version. It might be called Proposal_v3_final, or Museum draft, or something unrelated to museums at all, because it was reused from an earlier pitch.

This page covers the usual ways people hunt down a document they can describe but can’t name, and how to find one in Fabric by describing it, across files you’ve saved and apps you’ve connected.

How people usually look for a document

Most people start in the place they think the document lives. Google Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox all search file contents, and Notion and Confluence search their own pages. Each works well inside its own walls. When a team’s documents are split across three or four tools, finding one means repeating the same search in each, with slightly different results and syntax every time.

On a computer, Spotlight or Windows search finds local files by name and some content. Recent files lists help if the document was opened lately. Neither helps much with a file from last year that you remember only by its subject.

The last resort is asking someone, usually in Slack: “Does anyone have the doc where we laid out the phased rollout?” That works when the right person is around and remembers. For consultancies, agencies and research teams, the knowledge in old documents often depends on exactly that kind of memory, and it fades as people move on.

Step 1: Bring documents and apps into one search

Fabric handles DOCX, TXT, Markdown, HTML and JSON files, PowerPoint decks in PPT and PPTX, and CSV and XLSX spreadsheets, alongside PDFs. Drag files in, paste them, or click Upload a file, which handles large batches at once. Notes you write in Fabric are documents too.

To work from Finder or File Explorer, install the Fabric desktop app. It mounts Fabric as a drive on Mac, Windows and Linux, and a team can share a drive this way, so the proposal the whole team edits lives in one place.

Documents that live in other tools can stay there. Through connections, Google Docs, Slides and Sheets and Notion pages become searchable from Fabric, and the Google Drive connection syncs files in both directions. To set one up, go to the Fabric marketplace, choose the app, click Install, then sign in and grant permissions. Connections need a paid plan.

Step 2: Let Fabric understand each document

As a document arrives, Fabric creates embeddings so search can match it by meaning, writes a summary, extracts content type and topics, and suggests tags. That’s smart organization, and it means search can match a file called Proposal_v3_final by what it covers: a phased rollout proposal for a museum.

Smart collections can then gather documents by content, such as every proposal or every board update, without anyone filing them. Folders, spaces and tags are optional, and search works the same with or without them. How to organize digital files covers light structures that sit well on top.

Step 3: Describe the document in search

Click Search or press Cmd+F (Mac) / Ctrl+F (Windows) and describe what the document was about. Fabric search is hybrid, matching meaning and keywords together. “Proposal for a museum with a phased rollout” can find a deck whose slides talk about “Phase 1: pilot gallery” and never use the word “museum” in the filename.

Good descriptions mention purpose and content: “onboarding checklist for new contractors”, “spreadsheet comparing three venue quotes”, “style guide with rules for headings and capitals”. Put a client name, project code or exact phrase in quotes for strict matching. Filter by kind of item to see only documents, or by location to stay inside one client’s space. If the first results are close but not right, add one more detail you remember, such as the client’s sector or a number from the budget, and search again.

When you find a close match, such as an earlier version of the proposal, select it and run similarity search to bring up related documents. This can surface a later version, or the deck that was built from the written proposal.

Step 4: Search connected apps and ask the AI

To include your connected apps, click inside the knowledge search panel, on the right of the search screen on web and desktop or in the bottom drawer on mobile. It runs an agentic search across Fabric and the apps you’ve connected, and you can ask follow-up questions there. How to search across all your apps at once goes into that setup.

The AI assistant runs the same search. Ask “Where’s the museum proposal with the phased rollout, and what were the phases?” and it answers with clickable references to the documents it found. To limit it to one area, open a folder and start the assistant there, or right-click a folder and add it to the assistant’s context.

Frequently asked questions

How do I find a document when I can’t remember its name?

Describe what it was about. Fabric search matches documents by meaning as well as keywords, so the filename doesn’t need to match.

Which document types can Fabric search?

DOCX, TXT, Markdown, HTML, JSON, PPT and PPTX, CSV and XLSX, PDFs and Fabric notes. Google Docs, Slides and Sheets and Notion pages come in through connections.

Can I search Google Docs and Notion together?

Yes, once both are connected. The knowledge search panel and the AI assistant search Fabric and your connected apps together. Connections need a paid plan.

Can I search inside spreadsheets?

Fabric supports CSV and XLSX files, and the AI assistant can read them, so you can ask questions about what a spreadsheet contains.

How do I find the latest version of a document?

Find one version, then run similarity search to bring up related files. How to search Google Drive by what’s inside files also helps when the versions are in Drive.

Can I limit a search to one client’s documents?

Yes. Filter by location, or open the client’s folder and ask the AI assistant, which limits itself to that folder.

Do I need to tag documents for search to work?

No. Fabric summarizes each document and extracts topics as it arrives, so search works without tags or folders.

Can my team search the same documents?

Yes. Share a space with your team and set each person’s role as viewer, commenter, editor or admin. See team pricing for plans.