Software for organizing electronic documents?

P

pkelecy

Registered
A lot of the reference material that I keep are technical papers on various topics. Most of these are now available in electronic form (pdf) so I've been thinking of chucking the paper files (which are kind of a pain to keep up with) and going to some sort of electronic filing systems.

Does anyone know of any good applications for storing, searching, and retrieving electronic documents? I would like something that functions similarly to a filing cabinet, where I could see a list of topics or categories, and then under each a list of the articles stored. Once nice thing with a electronic system would be the ability to cross reference the same paper under several different topics. This is something I sometimes struggle with when deciding where file a paper document that could fit under different headings.

Thanks for any suggestions or advice.

Pat
 
H

hth

Registered
Re: Software for organizing electronic documents?

pkelecy said:
Does anyone know of any good applications for storing, searching, and retrieving electronic documents? I would like something that functions similarly to a filing cabinet, where I could see a list of topics or categories, and then under each a list of the articles stored. Once nice thing with a electronic system would be the ability to cross reference the same paper under several different topics. This is something I sometimes struggle with when deciding where file a paper document that could fit under different headings.
Click to expand...

As i mentioned in another posting i use dogmelons notestudio for my GTDing. If i had your needs i would save my files in an appropriate filing structure on my pc and link them with notestudio. Notestudio has the possibility to link either within the application or to the web or to the filesystem.

Yours
Alexander
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Re: Software for organizing electronic documents

Anyone thinking about implementing an electronic document storage system might want to read Michael Linenberger's "Seize the Work Day." In the book, he reviews the advantages/disadvantages and use of 5 different software packages for this purpose: Windows Journal, FCPlanPlus for Outlook (similar to FCPlanPlus for XP and Agilix GoBinder), FCTablet Planner (recently replaced by FCPlanPlus for XP), Adobe Acrobat, and ScanSoft PaperPort. Even though some of the discussion is geared more toward TabletPC users, there are many things to be learned here regardess of what type of computer system you use. By the way, Mr. Linenberger claims to use the Acrobat solution which by the way allows you to list a single document in several places in the index of documents that he show how to create. (I've use PDF files for some time, but I must say that I never realized just how powerful they were till I read this book.)

Hope this helps,

Jeff
 
P

pkelecy

Registered
Thanks to everyone for all the suggestions. Some of these (ie. paper tiger) look like their designed more for organizing paper documents. Some of the others, though, look like they might work. I need to investigate further.

I did a search on this a while back (prior to pursuing GTD) and found quite a few "document organizers", but it's really hard to tell how well they really work without trying them (which is very time consuming). That's why recommendations are always nice.

Thanks again.

Pat
 
M

mochant

Guest
Keep in mind that I use a Tablet PC

FWIW, I have tried the FC software packages, various search tools combined with an hierarchy in the filing system, Linenberger's Acrobat idea, and have ultimately chosen Agilix GoBinder as the best tool for maintaining my "eBinder".

I think Linenberger's book is a brilliant explication of how to use your PC (and especilly a Tablet) as you command center. GoBinder is not a perfect GTD tool (yet) though. Agilix needs to add category support for tasks and calendar items to complete the application for GTD use.

If you use a Tablet PC, this is an application you certainly want to take for a test drive. Even if you don't, it's still very well designed and can be used most effectively to keep all your "stuff" organized.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Software for electronic documents

For a really Star Wars-like interface (Explorer view also an option), you should check out www.thebrain.com

I'd love to use this myself, but don't have enough volume at home and my company won't support it for use at work.
 
P

pbakker1

Guest
I'm using MindManager X5 for storing references and links to all kind of stuff on the internet and on the local harddisk. It's very simple to import a files and folder listing into the mindmap with a so called map part.

Also just trying resultmanager. That's how I got on this board. GTD is totally new for me but looks very promising... I always have problems with time management.

Regards,
Peter
 
H

hth

Registered
pbakker1 said:
I'm using MindManager X5 for storing references and links to all kind of stuff on the internet and on the local harddisk. It's very simple to import a files and folder listing into the mindmap with a so called map part.
Click to expand...

If you like mindmaps, try:
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/

Less features than MindManager, but free and available for many platforms.

Yours
Alexander
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Document management software

The best free-form database on the planet is askSam from askSam systems. You can import text into free-form records, as well as attach Adobe Acrobat files.
Best of all, you don't need the structure things before starting, yet the retrieval capabilities are fantastic.

Check this out at askSam.com

Richard George
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top