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1 free PageFour license (and one only)

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Curt:
Screenshots: http://www.softwareforwriting.com/screenshots.html

For sure, the program is stable
- and easy to use.

The only set-back I can think of right now, besides the lack of horns and bells, is the that there are two types of back-up. One is the short-term memory, (="save changes?"), the other a genuine backup. The set-back is that you have to deal with this at all. Once the settings have been done, a genuine back-up really should be performed every once in a while AND every time you close the program, I think.

Also I find that I have to double-click a little too often.

Other than that the program is stable, well organized, fairly nice, and easy.

tomos:
Would you care to do a review about PageFour for us? :-*

I'm always looking for new writing/idea tools. (It's a hobby of mine.) ;D
-40hz (March 11, 2009, 11:31 AM)
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40hz
you can download a time-UN-limited trial (there's a limitation on the number of "Notebooks" (three I think) and pages in each (30))
That's enough though to give you a good sense of the programme I reckon. There's a quite positive review of it by Tom Colvin here (and he's a real writer, not like us :P)


The tabs are nice to have, there's lots of keyboard shortcuts (unfortunately not customisable - Ctrl+Z on a german keyboard is not easy :(). There some nice options for spelling/correction.

I already have a list of requests/suggestions to the developers, most interface related - I'll wait till I've used it a bit (more) before sending on.

There's the equivalent of an outline on the left - well, it works like a folder tree with "pages" instead of files. You have to double click a page to display it (ouch), although I guess it's mimicking explorer there which is logical e.g. if you want to move a page to a different location you dont want it to open on first click: but, a bit of a pain as Curt says.

Importing:
to import word document you need Word 2000 or newer (ouch agin). I use Softmaker Office 2008 ...
You can import individual files or you can select a folder and filetype (doc if you have word, rtf and txt) and it will import all files of selected types.

Exporting:
only in "Notebook" format (havent looked at that yet). For something that's aiming at writers, I really dont understand this - surely they will want to pass on their work (+ formatting even) to someone else? Review linked above says:
PageFour maintains its files in Rich Text Format, or RTF, the format which I think should be preferred by writers - so maybe there is some way to export or convert but it's not explained in the help file ...Hah, they are RTF files - now why didnt they say that in the first place :huh: ;)


Personally, what I'm looking for is somewhere that I can organise my growing collection of notes/ideas about various topics (which often overlap) and where I can then actually produce something from them - I'm still not sure what exactly and maybe that's part of my problem - I'm not sure if PageFour is the programme for this but I'm gonna try it.

For info about PageFour and some other writer's software see the SOFTWARE page on Tom Colvin's blog (Becoming A Writer Seriously)

40hz:
Personally, what I'm looking for is somewhere that I can organise my growing collection of notes/ideas about various topics (which often overlap) and where I can then actually produce something from them - I'm still not sure what exactly and maybe that's part of my problem -
-tomos (March 15, 2009, 08:17 AM)
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You might want to look at askSam :

https://www.asksam.com/brochure.asp

askSam is the ideal application to organize your information. askSam is a different kind of database - a free-form database designed for users rather than programmers. askSam makes it easy to turn anything into a searchable database: email messages, word processing documents, text files, spreadsheets, addresses, Web pages, and more.

askSam gives you the power of a database without the complexity. No need to program or learn a complicated query language. With askSam, you simply import or enter information, and you're ready to search. askSam users range from individuals organizing email, addresses, and research notes to corporations and government organizations managing meeting minutes, regulations, policy manuals, and corporate databases.
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askSam has been around for years (now at version 7) and has a very devoted following. I have a few writer/journalist type friends that swear by it for organizing piles of overlapping textual information. There are some articles and stories up on the website by people who are using this product on live projects:

http://www.asksam.com/researchers.asp

A little pricey @ US $149 for the "standard edition." But there's a 30-day full feature trial available for download.

Curt:
- really weird to see that askSam needs $245 extra for indexing the text!


askSam Standard 7       $ 149.95    
The World's Most Popular Free-Form Database! Imagine a database flexible enough to organize a decade of email, testimony from court cases, research notes, or simple names and addresses. askSam is used by researchers, students, investigators, and businesses around the world to organize and search all sorts of information.

askSam Professional 7       $ 395.00    
askSam Pro includes all the great features of askSam plus full text indexing to give you lightning-fast searches. -askSam
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wraith808:
Can PageFour be used portably?

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