hey Steve! 

I'm asking more whether there's a way to exclude without using custom syntax (because average users usually don't know how to parse out complex queries using operators etc in my experience). I've used search syntax myself before, but was surprised to find that there doesn't seem to be a button or option in the search interface to facilitate that exclusion-- it seems like something that can only be done through the syntax.

as an example, search for a keyword "meeting minutes" but exclude results with "Council meeting minutes" - in file explorer you can use the "NOT" keyword and quotation marks to achieve this (i.e. "Meeting minutes" NOT "Council meeting minutes"), and I was trying to figure out if there's an equivalent in laserfiche more intuitive than using the search syntax.

Another example might be searching for files that contain a keyword and excluding a certain filetype, as an example - excluding one filetype would be way better than having to select all the filetypes could apply etc.

Thanks for your example, though!

The only place that I can see that NOT exist is in the Text Section