Answers.Body: <p>You can use MySQL wildcards in most search fields.  Using a percentage sign will find either character - e.g. <code>G%nther</code> will find <code>Gunther</code>, <code>Günther</code>, and <code>Guenther</code>.  Note that this slows down searches, especially if it's at the very front of the search.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-10-31T16:31:43.703Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2020-10-31T16:31:43.703Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Jon G - Megaphone Tech
Answers.Body: <p>Also in case of the German &quot;Umlaute&quot; you should be able to simply type a/o/u instead of ä/ö/ü in most searches. Searching for &quot;Jurgen&quot; would for example also yield all &quot;Jürgen&quot; in the database.</p>
  <p>Afaik, a coherent phonetic search does not exist for CiviCRM yet.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-11-04T06:17:35.760Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2020-11-04T06:17:35.760Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Fabian
Body: <p>E.g. ss = ß, ae = ä, ue = ü, oe = ö</p>
  <p>Our language is German but English-speaking colleagues should be able to search for German contacts without having to copy a character from the character table. In addition, as native speakers, we sometimes don't know whether a surname is spelled with ß or ss. We then always have to look for both variants.</p>
  <p>Is there a solution for this?</p>
  
Tags: <search>
Title: Is there any way to search for contacts with special characters using other characters in the CiviCRM search?
ThreadText: # Is there any way to search for contacts with special characters using other characters in the CiviCRM search?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2020-10-28)
  
  E.g. ss = ß, ae = ä, ue = ü, oe = ö
  
  Our language is German but English-speaking colleagues should be able to search for German contacts without having to copy a character from the character table. In addition, as native speakers, we sometimes don't know whether a surname is spelled with ß or ss. We then always have to look for both variants.
  
  Is there a solution for this?
  
  **Tags:** search
  
  
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  ## 2 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_1 on 2020-10-31. Score: 1
  
  You can use MySQL wildcards in most search fields. Using a percentage sign will find either character - e.g. `G%nther` will find `Gunther`, `Günther`, and `Guenther`. Note that this slows down searches, especially if it's at the very front of the search.
  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_2 on 2020-11-04. Score: 0
  
  Also in case of the German "Umlaute" you should be able to simply type a/o/u instead of ä/ö/ü in most searches. Searching for "Jurgen" would for example also yield all "Jürgen" in the database.
  
  Afaik, a coherent phonetic search does not exist for CiviCRM yet.
  
  
  ---
  
  