How do I search for non-alphanumeric characters?

Many drug and chemical names contain non-alphanumeric characters such as apostrophes, parentheses, square brackets, hyphens, periods and commas.

For example: 1 (1,4 benzodioxan 5 yl) 4 [2 (1 indanyl)ethyl]piperazine

How

To find non-alphanumeric characters in Embase, follow these guidelines:

• Always enclose drug names with non-alphanumeric characters in quotation marks:

  • “1 (1,4 benzodioxan 5 yl) 4 (2 (1 indanyl)ethyl)piperazine”
• Use the keyboard characters listed below when you need these characters to appear in your search term:

  Non-alphanumeric character	Symbol	Character to use in Embase search	Symbol
  Apostrophe	'	Accent grave or space	`
  Parentheses	( )	Parentheses	( )
  Square brackets	[ ]	Parentheses	( )
  Hyphen	-	Hyphen or space	-
  Period	.	Period or space	.
  Comma	,	Comma or space	,
  Colon	:	Cannot be used in Embase search	n/a

Please note: Square brackets, quotes, apostrophes and colons cannot be used because they are reserved for special functions in the Embase search syntax.