Help

Main content

The main menu on the homepage lists the countries whose legal databases you can search.

To select a country, click on its flag; this will bring you to the search screen.

The menu on the left-hand side gives you 3 options:

Search

The search screen is broadly the same for all countries, regardless of how national databases are structured.

However, as the search functions on the underlying databases vary between countries, some of the search fields may be greyed out.

Tips for making searches

1. For help and examples of search terms – hover over

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   in front of the search field.
2. To find a term in a language you don't know – click on 

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   at the end of the search field:
   • Machine translation
   • Glossary (based on EUROVOC thesaurus)

Tweaking the results

• No hits, or none that are relevant?
  Remove entries from one or more fields and try again (this widens the scope of the search).
• Too many hits? 
  Make entries in more fields and try again (to get more precisely targeted results).

Search results

Each results page recaps your search criteria and allows you to:

• delete criteria from your original search, or add further criteria
• search again with new criteria.

Differences in search results display

During the transitional period when the connection technologies are being aligned, you may notice some differences (display, translation options available, etc.), depending on the country:

• Belgium, the Czech Republic, Greece, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal and Slovakia
  • Results are displayed differently for each country (essentially using the display and navigation options of the national database concerned).
  • Some information (‘number of pages shown’, ‘go to the next page’, etc.) is provided in the national language(s) only.
• Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK​ (Member State until 31.01.2020)
  • Standard display and navigation through N-Lex.
  • Only the documents' titles are in the national language(s).
  • Translation option available for search results in these databases.

Machine translation

You can use this to translate your search results (including titles, reference and summaries) into any official EU language. The option is currently available only for the databases listed below:

Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK (Member State until 31.01.2020).

How to use the tool

It takes about a minute to translate a full page of results (the speed depends on the amount of text displayed).

If your results take up more than 1 page, you will have to repeat the translation process for each page. 

Multi-database search

Use this if you want to search in several countries at the same time.

It is available only for the following countries:  Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK (Member State until 31.01.2020).

The search can be carried out simultaneously in 2-19 countries.

The only search criterion common to all these countries is the search by word(s) in the title and in the text.

Select the countries you are interested in from the left-hand menu. Then enter the word(s) in the dedicated fields, in the interface language.

Once you have entered 3 characters, the EUROVOC Thesaurus will suggest a term or terms. If the word you enter is not in the Thesaurus, automated translation will be used to translate the term you entered into the source language (i.e. the language of the queried database).