Search Pane options for a search on a subset of files

[francois maurice]

Hi,

I have a folder with 1 500 files.

With the Search Pane I can search the Active Document, All Open Documents, or within a folder (and subfolders).

I do not work with subfolders. I prefer to save all my PDF files in a single folder and use a reference management software (Zotero in my case) to organize my files in different ways. This allows greater flexibility.

But a few times, I need to do a search on a subset of files, say a hundred of files. I can't open as many files at a time.

Is it possible to add a feature that allows to create searches on different subsets of files? Such a feature is expected to save these searches, e.i. not the results but rather the name of the files on which the research is carried out. These searches on subsets of files may appear in the drop-down list of the "WHERE would you like to search? " option.

Thanks,

François

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Hi François

so essentially you want to be able to save a specific folder to search in anytime? With the default settings the Editor will remember these folders you have searched, even after closing the Editor and starting a new session.

How is your request different? How would you define or organize this subset?

Forgive me if I am being obtuse.

[francois maurice]

Hi Paul,

Thanks to reply.

It is not about folder or sub-folder but about subset of files.

In fact, Editor already keep in the dropdown list below the option "WHERE would you like to search?" a list of all the folders in which searches have already been done.

What I would like to do is to select files in a folder and give a name to this set of files. Those named sets could then be display in the same dropdown list below the option "WHERE would you like to search?" in the Search Pane.

I could then select a named set and do a search in those files instead of doing a search in a whole folder.

I think this can be a nice feature, especially for folders containing a lot of PDF files. Instead to search in a big folder, we could search only in certain files.

Don't hesitate to tell me if it is not clear enough.

François

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Thanks for the details François,

indeed we had a feature request for this some years ago and it was rejected at the time. I have, after discussing this with the Development Team Leader, re-opened the ticket. While it is for internal purposes only if you refer to RT#395: Feature request :: Editor :: Collections in a post or email to support@pdf-xchange.com then any staff member will be able to get you a status update.

While this does not represent a promise to deliver said feature, it is a commitment to again seriously looking into the practicality of the feature. At the end of the day it will be at the development teams discretion as to whether this gets implemented.

I hope that helps.

[francois maurice]

Thanks Paul for opening a ticket.

I will pray for the development team to add this feature.

François

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Hi François,

would saving your open files as a session be helpful here? You could have then, multiple saved sessions that you choose between. Opening a session would allow you to then search all the open files in the current session.

I ask this because the ticket I referred to has been closed with the explanation that the user may use sessions for what he is asking for.
I am not convinced this is what you are looking for. If it is then great, use sessions to access the collections of files you want to search.

If it is not what you were looking for, you may want to wait for the new Feature Request I just created #5167: Feature Request :: Editor :: Organiser with Collections

Your previous request did spark some pretty heated debate here over what sessions are and how they are best used as opposed to a collection and how it would be used. The upshot is that the Lead Developer has agreed that and Organizer with collections similar to what was in Adobe 9 is a good feature that we should implement. I do not know why it was dropped by Adobe, but it looks like it is no longer offered.

It looks like this will finally be something that comes to the PDF-XChange Editor, hopefully not too far in the future now.

I hope that helps.

[francois maurice]

Hi Paul,

Thank you for following.

You're right, it's not exactly what I'm looking for.
I already use Sessions to open small sets of PDF files.

Here's the problem:
I am a researcher who does a lot of search across PDF files.
Currently, I have about 4000 PDF files (30GB) in a single folder, and I add files to the folder every week.
I am using a single folder because I do not want to end up with multiple copies of the same PDF, since the same book or article could be classified in several different categories (folders).

Now, doing a full text search on 4000 files is too long. It's faster if I only search in comments/annotations, but it still takes between 5 to 10 minutes. Hence the idea of ​​having Collections to search in subsets of files. Not small sets of files, but large sets. For example, if I want to search in a subset that includes 200 files, it is not practical to use Sessions, since Sessions open files in Editor.

BUT, Collections would NOT be necessary if Editor could index PDF files (including comments/annotations). The search would then be instantaneous.

How do I work right now?
I use Editor to search within comments/annotations across all 4000 PDF files.
I use Recoll to do full text searches across all 4000 files.
Recoll is a software that indexes several file formats, including PDF files. But there are two problems with Recoll: 1) it does not index comments/annotations; 2) it is powerful enough to open the PDF file on the right page when I click on a search result within Recoll, but it does not highlight the search results in the PDF file.

From my point of view, an indexing feature within the advanced Search Pane is the best solution. To say it differently, we can use the exact same Search Pane, but if we do a full text search, the results will appear instantaneously since Editor would have index all PDF files in my folder or all PDF files on my hard drive for that matter. (The shell extensions iFilter does not do the job since it does not open a PDF file to a specific page and for that matter does not highlight results.)

I hope it's clear.

François

[David.P]

An interesting thread François, especially with regard to the tools you mentioned, Recoll and Zotero.

Regarding Recoll, I would be interested to know if it works well on Windows? I have been using Archivarius 3000 for a long time and am always interested in alternatives.

As for Zotero, I would be curious if it can be used to link between different files, for example Word and PDF files in such a way that you link not only to the other file, but to a specific page or text passage in the other file, similarly as in annotate.com.

Thank you very much for any information about this.

Best regards
David

[francois maurice]

Hi David,

Regarding Recoll, I have been using it for 3 years and it works very well on Windows. It is a bit slow on my computer, but I have a computer that is 7 years old (8GB ram, i5-2520M at 2.50 GHz). Despite everything, it is very fast when I do a search on all of my 4000 PDF files. In a few seconds, I have a result. Recoll also has a lot of setting options. The developer, Jean-François Dockes, answers questions fairly quickly.

Regarding Zotero, no, it does not allow you to link two documents in order to open a document on a specific page. Of course, you can insert quotes directly into Word, OpenOffice and LibreOffice as for any modern reference manager. However, it allows you to import from Firefox or Chrome references from many sites like Springer and company.

If you are interested in these kinds of questions, you may be interested in these two threads that I started a while ago:

viewtopic.php?f=62&t=30374

viewtopic.php?f=62&t=30582

I tried to convince Tracker Software to implement a very powerful annotation manager. They agreed to implement some small features one day, but not a complete manager. They say the market is not big enough.

Best regards,

François

[David.P]

Thank you very much François,

I'll make sure to try Recoll. In my case, the file count is in the order of half a million files, which Archivarius 3000 however easily searches in a fraction of a second.

I find your approach to keep all files in one folder, and sort them by tags instead of hierarchies, very interesting. I have been looking for a similar approach for a long time, however one that would work across locations and teams.

Just for completeness, below two more links on this topic.

Probably the most complete overview about tagging software, by Simon Kravis from Canberra:
What's the Best Software for Tagging Files?


A detailed paper on the differences between tagging and the usual hierarchical file organization:
Designing better file organization around tags, not hierarchies


Since (apart from annnotate.com) there seems to be no software available yet that allows linking between different files directly to a text passage, or page, I'm still doing exactly this with PDF-XChange Editor, by putting all essential files for a certain subject or project into a single PDF.

Of course this has the disadvantage that the original files are frozen into the PDF in their respective state. If an original file changes, the PDF must be manually updated accordingly. Also, obviously, it is not possible to have the same file turn up in different project PDF's without duplicating the file this way.

I plan to post more details about this topic in this thread as soon as possible:
Collaboration in PDF-XChange

Best regards
David

[francois maurice]

Hi David,

Thanks for the links.

These are very detailed articles. But as I am mainly interested in tags associated with Annotations/Comments, these are therefore tools that it would not be useful to me. Especially since I only work with PDF files and I can write metadata that Recoll indexes and finds.

About Archivarius 3000, do you know if it indexes Annotations/Comments in PDF files? This is something that Recoll does not do. And, according to you, what are the weaknesses of this software?

About annotate.com, do you know if the Annotations/Comments of PDF files follow the ISO standard for PDF? This is the reason why I don't use Qiqqa, which is designed to manage Annotations/Comments of PDF files, but its Annotations/Comments system is not compatible with the ISO standard for PDF.

And you manage a lot of files: half a million!! I find the idea of ​​putting all the PDF files of a project in one big PDF file interesting. I'm going to have to consider the pros and cons.

I look forward to the details on how you work that you will post on viewtopic.php?f=62&t=32559.(Collaboration in PDF-XChange) (By the war, how do you insert a link without the ugly adress?)

Best regards,

François

[David.P]

Hello François, please excuse my late reply.

Archivarius 3000 definitely indexes PDF annotations/comments. It works really well in my case, and has only a few glitches.

Unfortunately however, I can't seem to get a response from the company anymore on my support requests, and there also have been no updates for over a year. I hope it is not discontinued.

About annotate.com, while this is a fantastic collaboration solution way ahead of its time, I haven't started using it yet. So I don't know whether their annotations/comments follow the ISO standard for PDF.

I'd rather use locally installed software for linking between files and text passages, which however doesn't exist either. That is one of the reasons why I use PDF-XChange Editor for this at the moment, creating large document collections with thousands of pages and tens of thousands of comments, internal hyperlinks and bookmarks.

Regarding the creation of proper hyperlinks, this really should be improved in the forum editor. I currently use a BBCode browser extension for this.

Best regards
David