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General brainstorming for Note-taking software
Armando:
Thank you very much for the info, Darwin.
cnewtonne convinced me to try Ultra Recall... I don't know if I should, but... I will... :-[
By the way, cnewtone, are there specific things you don't like about Ultra Recall (apart from the little stability issues i believe you mentionned at some point in this thread...)?
Thanks!
cnewtonne:
Please see my post here http://www.kinook.com/Forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2640
Armando:
Thanks for the valuable infos cnewtonne.
At some point in your critique you mention a
more powerful product.
--- End quote ---
May I ask what you're referring to?
Nod5:
Sorry for posting and then not replying for a while. Great to see so many interesting suggestions. It's hard for me to post back on all the interesting stuff you post about but I'm eagerly reading every bit of it.
urlwolf (anrmado, cnewtonne, ... ),
ok, I'll be sure to try the latest Adobe Acrobat trial and see how the note features have evolved.
Urlwolf (and others): You say the notes can be searched. Does that include "cross-document" searching? Also, when using an external indexing search tool like google desktop search, are such notes in pdf files also indexed or only the original pdf text?
When googling I found this post on a feature for summarizing notes in freestanding pdf files. That sounds very useful. Have anyone tried it and have comments? http://blogs.adobe.com/acrobatineducation/2006/02/using_acrobat_for_summarizing.html
Darwin,
Yes I'm also sceptical about using EndNote for pdf notes since it can't really do margin notes, underlining and so on on (or overlaying) the pdf pages, right? It can connect separate note files and pdf files in its bibliography database. But maybe the best solution will be a tagteam of Acrobat and some database/organizer tool and so maybe EndNote could be that tag partner.
Great descriptions and screenshots of PaperPort Professional! Sounds like another contender as a pdf note application. And they do have a 15-day trial now it seems ( http://www.nuance.com/paperport/trial/ ) so I'll try that out too. Thanks for the heads up about slow indexing also.
I think the possibility of making notes for edit protected pdf files was one of the things that got me thinking about a system with free-standing note files layered "on top" of the regular pdf files. For personal use it is easy to remove the proctection for most pdf files and I have no qualms about doing so for the sake of entering notes or something like that. But sharing notes by passing around the unlocked files might be another thing... The prospect of just sending a small note file that works for anyone with the original, still protected pdf file is more appealing. Especially if we want, like I want, large, online and free archives of these kinds of margin notes, underlinings and so on. (one obvious problem with that vision, apart from it being a dream and no actual product :), is that the document properties needed to position the underlining, margin notes and so on might not be available if the document is in protected mode)
Armando,
Interesting what you write about your manual tagging system. I've made some such attempts (not as systematic as what you describe though) but often feel discouraged by my own inconsistencies from too quickly typing the various tags. I think more gui guided/programmatic tagging is the way to go really so I'll check out some of those tools you mention.
Re:hyperlinks: if journal article pdf files consistently cointain doi ID numbers as some type of metadata (I don't know if they do, but it wouldn't surprise me), then maybe some rather simple script could be made to extract doi+page number, make a string and paste into any external note file. Later, selecting that string in the notes and running the script again searches for a doi-matching document, opens it and jumps to the matching page.
"with X1, Copernic, Farr, the right tagging and file naming system, the right organization structure, the pretty standard "commenting" ability found in many software, and a good note taking software (myBase, EverNote, etc.), a good OCR program and a fast scanner, it doesn't seem like a terribly difficult task."
Ok, maybe such a multiple program approach is the way to go. Does apps like myBase, Evernote,... get all their notes indexed by such local search tools? Does the indexing tools also index tags for notes made with the note applications internal tagging tools (in contrast to manual tags as plain text phrases on the notes page)?
cnewtonne,
UltraRecall sounds very powerful at least for notes on/in non-pdf documents. If I understand it correctly RepliGo has highlighting only on separate copies of the original pdf and seems very geared toward mobile users. I'll put it on my "to try" list though that i getting long right now so... :-) Are the copies RG makes pure image files or is the text still searchable and so on?
"software psychologist" - yeah, bring'em on ;D
Darwin:
Yes I'm also sceptical about using EndNote for pdf notes since it can't really do margin notes, underlining and so on on (or overlaying) the pdf pages, right? It can connect separate note files and pdf files in its bibliography database. But maybe the best solution will be a tagteam of Acrobat and some database/organizer tool and so maybe EndNote could be that tag partner.
--- End quote ---
Endnote can't open the pdfs for viewing or editing - it relies on your default viewer to do this. Endnote does allow you to make notes and lists of keywords that are tied to the library record for the pdf, but as these are part of your Endnote library, they have nothing to do with the pdf. The only way to share your notes would be to share the Endnote library, but that relies totally on the other person/people having a recent version of Endnote installed (8 or higher) if you create your library in the latest version. The only other thing Endnote does is to give you the option of storing the pdf as part of your library. This isn't necessary as you can also link to the pdf's location on yourharddrive from within the library record,but this means that the link will be broken if you open the library file from a different location. This is only an issue if you, like me, use Endnote to find references and like the convenience of being able to open the reference as soon as you locate it in Endnote.
A cheaper alternative to both PaperPort ($199 for the Pro version) and to Acrobat Pro ($400 or so) might be something like FoxIt Reader - it will allow you to annotate and highlight your pdfs and there are a couple of shareware upgrades that extend these capabilities. I don't have any experience using these features and don't have FoxIt installed at the moment so can't test this for you right now. Check out the "More PDF Tools" links in the lower left pane of the page I linked to...
As I started writing this, I *thought* Foxit software was charging about $20 for each add-on but I see now that they are $60 - $100... At those prices you might as well look at the serious contenders in the non-Acrobat PDF category - Scansoft PDF Converter Pro, FinePrint PDF Factory (scroll down for the additional Pro features), Jaws, Nitro, etc. The pricing point for all of these seems to be in the $50 to $100 range, depending on whether you go for the standard or pro version. Just as a final note, you can get eXpert PDF 3 for free with the option to get the upgrade to the new version at a reduced price. It looks like the free version will do what you want, though.
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