What does spotlight search?

Sorry for the obvious question, but is there a document / thread (I tried looking) that gives a quick summary of how spotlight works and what it looks at?
I ask as it doesn't search, for me, footnotes of Word documents (which is annoying) and companies in Address Book (which is also annoying). I'm wondering if this is a problem with my computer, or standard.
Thanks!

Instead of searching directly on drives and within files, Spotlight indexes those drives and files, and searches within the index.
Therefore everything relies on Spotlight being able to keep that index complete, accurate, and up to date (to the microsecond, as you will be constantly changing files, renaming them, moving them around, etc., in normal use).
Needless to say, Spotlight fails to do that and despite the many clever and not-so-clever fixes that are sometimes suggested in these forums, the entire concept, in my opinion and in the opinion of others, is very silly, too clever for its own good, and we wonder what Apple was thinking of.
<I'm wondering if this is a problem with my computer, or standard.>
Alas, it's standard. To find the files you're looking for, more efficaciously, more quickly, and certainly more reliably, I suggest you try EasyFind as an alternative.
EasyFind is freeware and can be downloaded from here:
http://www.devon-technologies.com/products/freeware/index.html
12" PowerBook G4, G4 450 DP tower   Mac OS X (10.3.9)   on the Powerbook, and 10.4.2 on the G4 450

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    Message was edited by: RichardF

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    <Email Edited by Host>

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