I hope you are well today and thank you for your questions.

How can I shrink the border around the search result so its not so bulky?

You can achieve this by adding the below CSS code in the Custom CSS option of Ivory Search plugin settings on the path Admin Area -> Ivory Search -> Settings -> Settings

div.is-ajax-search-details, 
div.is-ajax-search-result {
    padding: 2px;
}

Also I’ve messed around in my theme settings, and I was able to customize the search results font, but not the text actually in the box. What can I do there?

Sorry, I am not sure that I understood your question so could you please describe it a bit more?

Best regards,
Ivory Search Support

I hope you are well today and thank you for your question.

Could you please share the page URL from your site where it is not working so I can troubleshoot it?

Also, can you check the browser JavaScript console for errors when you face this issue?

In Chrome go to “Tools -> Developer Tools” and in Firefox you can go to “Tools -> Web Developer -> Console”

Find information about how to open the JavaScript browser console :

http://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/8525/how-to-open-the-javascript-console-in-different-browsers
http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Your_Browser_to_Diagnose_JavaScript_Errors

Let me know what JavaScript errors if any you are getting when you face this issue.

Best regards,
Ivory Search Support

I hope you are well today and thank you for your question.

You can order it by using the meta_value in the search form options as described below.

Order Search Results Posts

You also have to develop some custom code to add a meta key in the search query as below.

function func_is_pre_get_posts( $query ){
      $query->set( 'meta_key', 'meta_key_name' );
}
add_action('is_pre_get_posts', 'func_is_pre_get_posts');

Best regards,
Ivory Search Support

You are always welcome, I’m glad I was able to help you with this matter. There is no obligation but by your kind words I wonder if I could trouble you to leave a review based on this experience here:

https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/add-search-to-menu/reviews/?filter=5

I’d really appreciate that. 🙂

And if I can be of any further assistance please don’t hesitate to ask.

I will add it in the upcoming plugin release.