Moxie Posted January 4, 2013 Posted January 4, 2013 I have so many PDF's on my computer. Does anyone have a great way to organize them? I wish there were some easy way to search them. For example, I have several History Scribe PDF sets. I wish I could search "Abe Lincoln" and find all the notebook pages that deal with Abe Lincoln. Any great way to organize these besides going through them one at a time printing the index for each one (not a half bad idea, now that I think about it)?? Quote
Moxie Posted January 4, 2013 Author Posted January 4, 2013 I have them in folders (US History, Science, etc.). But books have titles like "Famous People". I need an easy way to see "oh, today we're reading about Galileo, wonder if I have a notebook page for him". Planning ahead would probably do the trick, right?? There's never enough time. Quote
elegantlion Posted January 4, 2013 Posted January 4, 2013 I've tried various things, but the most effective for me is folders in my downloads folder. I do subfolders when necessary. Another thing I've started doing is download everything without it going into a folder, then when we're on our week break (6weeks on, 1 week off), I go through and file them. This forces me to look at them again, maybe retitle them, and decide how I'm going to use it. I tend to be a person that will file and forget (digital and paper), so I force myself to see it at least twice before it's filed, that way I have better time of remembering its there. Another option is to print the title page of each download and file them, making note on the page why you might use it. I'll print them for specific items if I'm planning. Quote
jmccumbers Posted January 4, 2013 Posted January 4, 2013 If you have a big set of notebooking pages, like the ones from History Scribe, you can print out each of the table of contents and put them in your teacher notebook. This along with a categorized list of your individual pdf documents should help you to know if you have a page for the subject you're doing. Organize your folders on the computer the same way that your lists of documents are organized. Quote
cherimoya Posted January 5, 2013 Posted January 5, 2013 Thanks for the Calibre idea! I'm going to try it out. Quote
Pod's mum Posted January 5, 2013 Posted January 5, 2013 If anyone else has purchased ummm one or two downloads from currclick over the years, you can check through their site to see what you have bought over the years and even redownload if you lose them through computer issues. I've found stuff I'd forgotten I had. I like the idea of printing out the contents page to file. When I run out of things to do ( :lol: ) I'll do this. Quote
PeterPan Posted January 5, 2013 Posted January 5, 2013 On a mac, when you search it searches the contents of the pdf as well as the name, so mine usually turn up pretty readily. Someone mentioned saving stuff to downloads. On a mac, anything on your desktop (including that downloads folder) is eating up RAM. So if you do anything that's RAM and processor intensive on a mac, the advice I heard was to keep your desktop as clean as possible. That had nothing to do with anything, just your free tip of the day. :) Quote
threeturn Posted January 6, 2013 Posted January 6, 2013 My Mac will find anything -- searches all the words inside. I wonder if there is a similar search program for Windows. Edit: You can download Google Desktop to get a better search. Article here. Edit again: Well nevermind. They discontined it last year! Thanks for that tip OhElizabeth. Off to clean up my desktop now. Quote
PeterPan Posted January 6, 2013 Posted January 6, 2013 My Mac will find anything -- searches all the words inside. I wonder if there is a similar search program for Windows. Edit: You can download Google Desktop to get a better search. Article here. Edit again: Well nevermind. They discontined it last year! Thanks for that tip OhElizabeth. Off to clean up my desktop now. I know, isn't that cool? I learned it on a Jared Platt course on Creative Live. You do photography, don't you? I thought I remember once you mentioning that. Anyways, that was the context. If you want your mac to run faster for photo-editing, gotta keep that desktop clean. Hmm, maybe there's something like that for regular desks too? :lol: Quote
Classically Minded Posted January 25, 2013 Posted January 25, 2013 Evernote! I use the free version on my desktop and set up "local folders" that don't sync so that it doesn't take away from my monthly allotment. Then I throw my PDF's in there and search for whatever I need and it searches through the documents. Quote
cherimoya Posted January 25, 2013 Posted January 25, 2013 MaggieAnnie, I also want to thank you for Calibre. It is absolutely wonderful. I completed the organizing of over a thousand books in a weekend and know exactly where all my pdf files and ebooks are--whether they are on the kindle, epub or pdf format. I'm considering setting up a library for my scanned personal docs as well as one for recipes. My life is now organized....in the pdf arena. =) Quote
cherimoya Posted January 25, 2013 Posted January 25, 2013 One of the things i did that help was helpful was to create tag columns for, grade, age, subject and kid. Great tip! I will look into doing that this weekend. Quote
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