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PDF Organizer for Scientific Papers
I am in need of a PDF organizer for scientific papers. My feeling is that a good solution to this problem has tremendous opportunity for a couple of reasons. (1) No current solution is suitable. (2) Researchers (particularly grad students) are early adopters.
The existing tools are lacking. The most common tool is a bastardization of iTunes. The problem with iTunes is not search capability. Google Desktop and Microsoft Search are great for the search aspect, but have no tools for meta data or tagging.
A smooth, intuitive, quick interface is required. My work flow is to use Google web or journal search engines to find papers of interest. Then I download the PDFs to my desktop into a directory structure that makes sense at the time (but I always forget what that structure was for as time goes by). I rename the file with the pub year and author name and a few key words. Then I create metadata in the PDF properties for the bibliographic information. This last step is the most annoying and doesn't always get done because of the cumbersome button clicks required. Also, I don't believe the metadata is searchable through Google Desktop. A tool that would make this workflow faster would be great.
[Edit] Ah, I should add that a tool that makes the work flow more enjoyable would be great too! Fun is something that organizing PDFs is not.
The existing tools are lacking. The most common tool is a bastardization of iTunes. The problem with iTunes is not search capability. Google Desktop and Microsoft Search are great for the search aspect, but have no tools for meta data or tagging.
A smooth, intuitive, quick interface is required. My work flow is to use Google web or journal search engines to find papers of interest. Then I download the PDFs to my desktop into a directory structure that makes sense at the time (but I always forget what that structure was for as time goes by). I rename the file with the pub year and author name and a few key words. Then I create metadata in the PDF properties for the bibliographic information. This last step is the most annoying and doesn't always get done because of the cumbersome button clicks required. Also, I don't believe the metadata is searchable through Google Desktop. A tool that would make this workflow faster would be great.
[Edit] Ah, I should add that a tool that makes the work flow more enjoyable would be great too! Fun is something that organizing PDFs is not.
Tags: development, organizer, pdf, software
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by renee holiday on -
Good point, David. Although I am NOT a developer, I am a bit obsessed with file organization, too. I never seem to create a perfect system. LOL
It seems like this could be a nice niche for an app. :-) I will ask around.
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Permalink Reply by Leonard Knight on -
Hey David! I use Evernote for storing/organizing/searching PDFs all the time. It works great! It is web based with multiple clients including iphone and palmpre. It does OCR on any image, pdf, scan and makes everything searchable. Also, it allows for limited collaboration; you can share a notebook with others.
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Permalink Reply by David L. Page on -
Thanks, Leo! You are one with the machines! I'm always amazed at how you have the best (and usually free) software tools hanging on the tip of your tongue.
Thanks!
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Permalink Reply by renee holiday on
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I'm glad I looked at this thread again. Yep, I have been totally impressed with Leo since I met him. :-) Thanks for always sharing your resources and knowledge, Leo. You rock! :-D
Ahhh, I downloaded Evernote for iPhone, but never really used it. I'll have to check it out further.
I'm doing some freelance/contract organizing work now. I'd love to share this with my client, who is a researcher.
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Permalink Reply by Wallace B. McClure on -
This is kinda interesting. I wrote about how to make pdf documents full text searchable in one of my books on database design about 4 years ago. Its personally an interesting topic. Its actually a little more complicated that it seems due to Adobe not really working well with others. Its actually fairly doable if there is some type of financing to get this off the ground.
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Permalink Reply by Alex Lavidge on -
I use http://mekentosj.com/papers/ for this.
To stay up to date I use with all kinds of cool applications I use http://osx.iusethis.com/.
If you use a PC, I don't know what to tell ya ... ;-p
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