For anyone else who may be looking for this feature, their is a workaround. If you are like me, and have to frequently analyze multiple large documents, and want to establish a systematic method of grouping your research data using "custom categories", then here is what you would do.
Open all of you documents that you are currently researching. Pick a section of one of the document that you know you would like to "tag". I typically use highlights, annotate the highlight with notes, and use a color coded "tagging system" to reference different things. Highlight your text and assign a color. After you annotate your note, right click your highlight and choose properties within the main viewing window. In the subject field, under general tab, choose a custom category by typing in a piece of text that you will remember. For example if you were researching something like a case law, and wanted to "categorize" highlighted text within 12 different electronic law books that pertained to that one particular case, you could type in something like "Case Law 1234567...". Close the highlight properties dialog box and continue "tagging" all of your documents in the same manner. It doesn't matter if you use different colors... Now press Control + Shift + F, drop the search options to "All Opened Documents", and under the options drop down menu choose "Include Comments". Now enter your custom category such as "Case Law 1234567", open all of your documents you are researching and click "search now" - now each document will be polled for your custom category, and show your custom category in a collapsible hierarchy illustrating each custom subject field within each document.
Until the ability to sort by subject is included, which is even lacking in Adobe, this is the only real functional workaround for organizing hundreds of annotations within multiple documents in a systematic and custom manner. Using bookmarks is too inefficient, especially when working with multiple documents, while trying to "tag" many different points of interest. Trying to find where that "one particular piece of text that discussed that one particular case number, in a document you couldn't quite remember" can now be easily found. Although software exists, such as Adobe and Xchange, that is designed for "document processing", typically few options are incorporated within the software where usability is designed for information analysis and data processing - and they are quite different. Even adobe lacks these design principles.
Alternative Technique to Creating "Custom Categories"
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Chris - Tracker Supp
- Site Admin
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Re: Alternative Technique to Creating "Custom Categories"
Thanks for your input chs200123, good suggestion, I have asked the Viewer Team to look at your request.
Cheers,
Chris
Cheers,
Chris
If posting files to this forum - you must archive the files to a ZIP, RAR or 7z file or they will not be uploaded - thank you.
Chris Attrell
Tracker Sales & Support North America
http://www.tracker-software.com
Chris Attrell
Tracker Sales & Support North America
http://www.tracker-software.com
Re: Alternative Technique to Creating "Custom Categories"
I posted the above message almost a year ago. I have to say PDF tracker, your products are getting better and better. I love them and recommend PDX Xchange viewer pro to all my friends and coworkers. I think that your product is far more advanced, only if used properly, than many other pdf packages to include adobe professional.
I would like to expand on my request that I made a year ago. My occupation and college endeavors keep me in a continuous state of research. This means I analyze, process and write technical evaluations for many of the documents I work with. Zotero and PDF Xchange are my primary portable and non-portable research tools. I'm a heavy annotator because I feel that it is vital when working with complex documents - especially legislation and government reports. After using these tools in conjunction with one another for so long now, I have developed a strong research workflow that is easily "transferrable" to other people (classmates and professionals). There are some tweaks however that PDF xchange could make that would make life so much easier.
- Including OCR into native PDF Xchange Pro portable (not separate application)
- Custom categories (I know this is coming, however I have some suggestions)
- When creating a summary report of comments, allow the option to only summarize select categories. This is vital because currently if I have annotated a long document, PDF exchange forces the summary of everything. While that may be okay for small projects, it makes it very difficult when trying to convey information to someone else who doesn't use a PDF editor effectively.
- Currently there is no way to quickly use a hotkey to maximize the window or pane the user wants fully open. This is not the same thing as full screen view. It is also not the same thing as using the hide tool bar option or show hide all bars option. In other words, there should be a function where a hotkey will simply activate the pane or window to full screen while keeping the toolbar available at the top. The difference here is that the main document window opens to the monitor's full viewing horizontally instead of vertically (hiding tool bar). The function should just block any bookmark, comment etc panes so it's not a hassle to constantly keep resizing panes to keep a steady workflow. This principle is heavily incorporated into many 3d design programs with non-blocking interfaces. PDX xchange really needs to put this in because the developers are constantly adding new features and giving users more power to work with (annotations etc), but are not providing a way to manage it all on the screen. A great example of this workflow principle is in Blender 3D. It is free and open source. Download Blender 3D and simply mouse over any pane and press Shift + Space - it will immediately block all other portions of the interface and bring the pane to full screen. It should matter if its a comments pane, a book marks pane or the main document window. The new design interfaces are great, but PDF is lacking a way where all the features PDX exchange offers is not useable in a more manageable way.
- Allow an option where comments and annotations can become part of the documents metadata or searchable text from other programs. If I run OCR on a document and then search its contents with another program (such as zotero), then all the text that was OCR'rd will return values. If I annotate PDF's, they are only searchable via xchange viewer's search function. This should be an easy fix, where comment data can become part of the document itself and viewable to other programs that store PDF's. This is important because most of the time comments and annotations are more imporatnt to retrieve then text that was just OCR'rd and indexed using a database like Zotero.
- Have developers look at Zotero and consider integrating functionality. I will say confidently that Zotero is the future of all programs that are designed for a researcher. I simply cannot say enough about it in making research manageable, efficient and transferable. PDF xchange is the tool that makes Zotero "customizable" because the contents of what is stored are easy to work with. Jump on board this opportunity Tracker because it will be a great initiative to seperate and advertise your products within the adademic universties who are using it (look at the university list - its actually very impressive).
Thank you. I know my recommendations are long-winded but I have been working with these tools for quite awhile now and know some of the key areas needed for improvement. I hope they will be considered.
Chris
-
-
I would like to expand on my request that I made a year ago. My occupation and college endeavors keep me in a continuous state of research. This means I analyze, process and write technical evaluations for many of the documents I work with. Zotero and PDF Xchange are my primary portable and non-portable research tools. I'm a heavy annotator because I feel that it is vital when working with complex documents - especially legislation and government reports. After using these tools in conjunction with one another for so long now, I have developed a strong research workflow that is easily "transferrable" to other people (classmates and professionals). There are some tweaks however that PDF xchange could make that would make life so much easier.
- Including OCR into native PDF Xchange Pro portable (not separate application)
- Custom categories (I know this is coming, however I have some suggestions)
- When creating a summary report of comments, allow the option to only summarize select categories. This is vital because currently if I have annotated a long document, PDF exchange forces the summary of everything. While that may be okay for small projects, it makes it very difficult when trying to convey information to someone else who doesn't use a PDF editor effectively.
- Currently there is no way to quickly use a hotkey to maximize the window or pane the user wants fully open. This is not the same thing as full screen view. It is also not the same thing as using the hide tool bar option or show hide all bars option. In other words, there should be a function where a hotkey will simply activate the pane or window to full screen while keeping the toolbar available at the top. The difference here is that the main document window opens to the monitor's full viewing horizontally instead of vertically (hiding tool bar). The function should just block any bookmark, comment etc panes so it's not a hassle to constantly keep resizing panes to keep a steady workflow. This principle is heavily incorporated into many 3d design programs with non-blocking interfaces. PDX xchange really needs to put this in because the developers are constantly adding new features and giving users more power to work with (annotations etc), but are not providing a way to manage it all on the screen. A great example of this workflow principle is in Blender 3D. It is free and open source. Download Blender 3D and simply mouse over any pane and press Shift + Space - it will immediately block all other portions of the interface and bring the pane to full screen. It should matter if its a comments pane, a book marks pane or the main document window. The new design interfaces are great, but PDF is lacking a way where all the features PDX exchange offers is not useable in a more manageable way.
- Allow an option where comments and annotations can become part of the documents metadata or searchable text from other programs. If I run OCR on a document and then search its contents with another program (such as zotero), then all the text that was OCR'rd will return values. If I annotate PDF's, they are only searchable via xchange viewer's search function. This should be an easy fix, where comment data can become part of the document itself and viewable to other programs that store PDF's. This is important because most of the time comments and annotations are more imporatnt to retrieve then text that was just OCR'rd and indexed using a database like Zotero.
- Have developers look at Zotero and consider integrating functionality. I will say confidently that Zotero is the future of all programs that are designed for a researcher. I simply cannot say enough about it in making research manageable, efficient and transferable. PDF xchange is the tool that makes Zotero "customizable" because the contents of what is stored are easy to work with. Jump on board this opportunity Tracker because it will be a great initiative to seperate and advertise your products within the adademic universties who are using it (look at the university list - its actually very impressive).
Thank you. I know my recommendations are long-winded but I have been working with these tools for quite awhile now and know some of the key areas needed for improvement. I hope they will be considered.
Chris
-
-
Re: Alternative Technique to Creating "Custom Categories"
I posted the above message almost a year ago. I have to say PDF tracker, your products are getting better and better. I love them and recommend PDX Xchange viewer pro to all my friends and coworkers. I think that your product is far more advanced, only if used properly, than many other pdf packages to include adobe professional.
I would like to expand on my request that I made a year ago. My occupation and college endeavors keep me in a continuous state of research. This means I analyze, process and write technical evaluations for many of the documents I work with. Zotero and PDF Xchange are my primary portable and non-portable research tools. I'm a heavy annotator because I feel that it is vital when working with complex documents - especially legislation and government reports. After using these tools in conjunction with one another for so long now, I have developed a strong research workflow that is easily "transferrable" to other people (classmates and professionals). There are some tweaks however that PDF xchange could make that would make life so much easier.
- Including OCR into native PDF Xchange Pro portable (not separate application)
- Custom categories (I know this is coming, however I have some suggestions)
- When creating a summary report of comments, allow the option to only summarize select categories. This is vital because currently if I have annotated a long document, PDF exchange forces the summary of everything. While that may be okay for small projects, it makes it very difficult when trying to convey information to someone else who doesn't use a PDF editor effectively.
- Currently there is no way to quickly use a hotkey to maximize the window or pane the user wants fully open. This is not the same thing as full screen view. It is also not the same thing as using the hide tool bar option or show hide all bars option. In other words, there should be a function where a hotkey will simply activate the pane or window to full screen while keeping the toolbar available at the top. The difference here is that the main document window opens to the monitor's full viewing horizontally instead of vertically (hiding tool bar). The function should just block any bookmark, comment etc panes so it's not a hassle to constantly keep resizing panes to keep a steady work-flow. This principle is heavily incorporated into many 3d design programs with non-blocking interfaces. PDX xchange really needs to put this in because the developers are constantly adding new features and giving users more power to work with (annotations etc), but are not providing a way to manage it all on the screen. A great example of this work flow principle is in Blender 3D. It is free and open source. Download Blender 3D and simply mouse over any pane and press Shift + Space - it will immediately block all other portions of the interface and bring the pane to full screen. It should not matter if its a comments pane, a bookmarks pane or the main document window. The new design interfaces are great, but PDF is lacking a way where all the features PDX exchange offers is not useable in a more manageable way.
- Allow an option where comments and annotations can become part of the documents metadata or searchable text from other programs. If I run OCR on a document and then search its contents with another program (such as zotero), then all the text that was OCR'rd will return values. If I annotate PDF's, they are only searchable via xchange viewer's search function. This should be an easy fix, where comment data can become part of the document itself and viewable to other programs that store PDF's. This is important because most of the time comments and annotations are more important to retrieve then text that was just OCR'rd and indexed using a database like Zotero.
- Have developers look at Zotero and consider integrating functionality. I will say confidently that Zotero is the future of all programs that are designed for a researcher. I simply cannot say enough about it in making research manageable, efficient and transferable. PDF xchange is the tool that makes Zotero "customizable" because the contents of what is stored are easy to work with. Jump on board this opportunity Tracker because it will be a great initiative to separate and advertise your products within the academic universities who are using it (look at the university list - its actually very impressive).
Thank you. I know my recommendations are long-winded but I have been working with these tools for quite awhile now and know some of the key areas needed for improvement. I hope they will be considered.
Chris
-
-
I would like to expand on my request that I made a year ago. My occupation and college endeavors keep me in a continuous state of research. This means I analyze, process and write technical evaluations for many of the documents I work with. Zotero and PDF Xchange are my primary portable and non-portable research tools. I'm a heavy annotator because I feel that it is vital when working with complex documents - especially legislation and government reports. After using these tools in conjunction with one another for so long now, I have developed a strong research workflow that is easily "transferrable" to other people (classmates and professionals). There are some tweaks however that PDF xchange could make that would make life so much easier.
- Including OCR into native PDF Xchange Pro portable (not separate application)
- Custom categories (I know this is coming, however I have some suggestions)
- When creating a summary report of comments, allow the option to only summarize select categories. This is vital because currently if I have annotated a long document, PDF exchange forces the summary of everything. While that may be okay for small projects, it makes it very difficult when trying to convey information to someone else who doesn't use a PDF editor effectively.
- Currently there is no way to quickly use a hotkey to maximize the window or pane the user wants fully open. This is not the same thing as full screen view. It is also not the same thing as using the hide tool bar option or show hide all bars option. In other words, there should be a function where a hotkey will simply activate the pane or window to full screen while keeping the toolbar available at the top. The difference here is that the main document window opens to the monitor's full viewing horizontally instead of vertically (hiding tool bar). The function should just block any bookmark, comment etc panes so it's not a hassle to constantly keep resizing panes to keep a steady work-flow. This principle is heavily incorporated into many 3d design programs with non-blocking interfaces. PDX xchange really needs to put this in because the developers are constantly adding new features and giving users more power to work with (annotations etc), but are not providing a way to manage it all on the screen. A great example of this work flow principle is in Blender 3D. It is free and open source. Download Blender 3D and simply mouse over any pane and press Shift + Space - it will immediately block all other portions of the interface and bring the pane to full screen. It should not matter if its a comments pane, a bookmarks pane or the main document window. The new design interfaces are great, but PDF is lacking a way where all the features PDX exchange offers is not useable in a more manageable way.
- Allow an option where comments and annotations can become part of the documents metadata or searchable text from other programs. If I run OCR on a document and then search its contents with another program (such as zotero), then all the text that was OCR'rd will return values. If I annotate PDF's, they are only searchable via xchange viewer's search function. This should be an easy fix, where comment data can become part of the document itself and viewable to other programs that store PDF's. This is important because most of the time comments and annotations are more important to retrieve then text that was just OCR'rd and indexed using a database like Zotero.
- Have developers look at Zotero and consider integrating functionality. I will say confidently that Zotero is the future of all programs that are designed for a researcher. I simply cannot say enough about it in making research manageable, efficient and transferable. PDF xchange is the tool that makes Zotero "customizable" because the contents of what is stored are easy to work with. Jump on board this opportunity Tracker because it will be a great initiative to separate and advertise your products within the academic universities who are using it (look at the university list - its actually very impressive).
Thank you. I know my recommendations are long-winded but I have been working with these tools for quite awhile now and know some of the key areas needed for improvement. I hope they will be considered.
Chris
-
-
-
Chris - Tracker Supp
- Site Admin
- Posts: 797
- Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2009 11:33 pm
Re: Alternative Technique to Creating "Custom Categories"
Hi Chris,
Yes I was going through some older posts, I will pass on your feedback to our developers for consideration.
Thanks again, I am happy you are pleased with our products.
Chris
Yes I was going through some older posts, I will pass on your feedback to our developers for consideration.
Thanks again, I am happy you are pleased with our products.
Chris
If posting files to this forum - you must archive the files to a ZIP, RAR or 7z file or they will not be uploaded - thank you.
Chris Attrell
Tracker Sales & Support North America
http://www.tracker-software.com
Chris Attrell
Tracker Sales & Support North America
http://www.tracker-software.com
Re: Alternative Technique to Creating "Custom Categories"
Are these interface changes going to be made? Where it is possible to mouse over a pane (comments, pages, searches, stamps etc.) and instantly maximize it with a hotkey?
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Tracker Supp-Stefan
- Site Admin
- Posts: 17941
- Joined: Mon Jan 12, 2009 8:07 am
- Location: London
- Contact:
Re: Alternative Technique to Creating "Custom Categories"
Hello chs200123,
I am not aware of any such changes in the current release of our Viewer, and have asked Chris to post any additional info he has from the dev team for the future plans on this.
Best,
Stefan
I am not aware of any such changes in the current release of our Viewer, and have asked Chris to post any additional info he has from the dev team for the future plans on this.
Best,
Stefan
Re: Alternative Technique to Creating "Custom Categories"
I also use PDFXChange viewer with zotero. They are a great team. There are a lot of Zotero users so potentially there is a large market. There is talk of creating some sort of presumably open source PDF annotation tool but Zotero development appears to be quite slow. In the meantime if there were more integration between the two then I think that Zotero users (academics/researchers/legal people) would want to use PDFXChange to annotate.
Specifically if it were possible to export comments, tags, categories, bookmarks to Zotero from PDFXChange then I think that would help with visibility. At them moment one can save comments to an adobe data file. If it were possible to save comments to a text file then they could be copy pasted to a Zotero note. If PDFXchange could write to the XQL Lite database directly then that would be just super. I am sure that there are other ways of integrating the two programs here is that zotero forum link again
http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/3725/
Specifically if it were possible to export comments, tags, categories, bookmarks to Zotero from PDFXChange then I think that would help with visibility. At them moment one can save comments to an adobe data file. If it were possible to save comments to a text file then they could be copy pasted to a Zotero note. If PDFXchange could write to the XQL Lite database directly then that would be just super. I am sure that there are other ways of integrating the two programs here is that zotero forum link again
http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/3725/