Tag Archives: DevonThink

Annotating PDFs with Highlights

Posted on June 8, 2015 by Csaba Pusztai

Note taking in the era of PDFs has clearly become an issue for most people working with electronic documents on a daily basis. As far as I know most reference managers now implement some form of a note taking/highlighting feature. … Continue reading →

Posted in Annotation, Notes | Tagged , , , | 14 Comments

Papers 3: considerable improvements, but still beta

Posted on June 30, 2014 by Aleh Cherp

I have recently been asked to prepare one of the Oxford Bibliographies. This required sifting through, organizing and annotating a large number of references and so I decided to give Papers 3.0 another try. I have previously been disappointed by various deficiencies of this … Continue reading →

Posted in Bibliographies | Tagged , , | 50 Comments

OS X Mavericks and OpenMeta tags

Posted on October 24, 2013 by Aleh Cherp

I have been checking Mavericks ability to handle OpenMeta tags which are essential for organizing academic reference files. I really hoped that the tags integrated in OS X would be compatible with my existing tagging system. At the moment I have … Continue reading →

Posted in Files, Tags and folders | Tagged , , , , | 23 Comments

Guest post by Ez: Annotating PDFs in Papers, Sente, Skim and other apps

Posted on October 26, 2012 by Aleh Cherp

Ez responded to the post on annotating pdf in Papers with a comment so useful I reworked it, with Ez’ kind permission, in a separate post. It was prompted by John asking about a “simple workflow”: ‘… [to create] referenced notes … Continue reading →

Posted in Annotation, Bibliographies, Files, Writing | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Removing duplicate reference files with Gemini

Posted on October 23, 2012 by Aleh Cherp

The best way to find a reference files management system which works for you is trial and error. However, all this trying and erring might leave a messy trail of duplicate files. You end up with more duplicates after sharing your … Continue reading →

Posted in Files | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Learning from Katie and David

Posted on October 20, 2012 by Aleh Cherp

I must admit that everything I know about Mac has either been directly learned or inspired by Macpowerusers (MPU), a podcast I started listening to about 3 years ago. Recently, MPU had their Episode 100 where they talked, among other things, … Continue reading →

Posted in Automation, Email | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Three stages of the academic workflow and Mac software

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Aleh Cherp

The’academic workflow’ is a representation of scholarship as a series of stages or steps connected to each other without gaps or duplication. Although simplified, the idea of the workflow helps to structure, develop, and communicate tools, knowledge and experience across … Continue reading →

Posted in Workflows | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Finding reference files

Posted on August 6, 2011 by Aleh Cherp

Finding general reference files is less exact and requires more intuition than naming and saving them. The choice of search tools depends primarily upon how much you remember about the file(s) you need to find. If you are lucky to … Continue reading →

Posted in Files | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Revisiting reference files

Posted on August 5, 2011 by Aleh Cherp

Academics deal with thousands of reference files (text documents, data sheets, images), which are sent by email, downloaded from the Internet, or obtained in other ways. To use MacPowerUsers‘ terms, ‘gathering’ of these files in neat hierarchical folders is not an … Continue reading →

Posted in Automation, Files, Tags and folders | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Sending files by email: good habits and useful tricks

Posted on July 18, 2011 by Aleh Cherp

Effectively handling file attachments is an important part of productive email habits. This post focuses on sending attachments. The attachments you receive are covered in the post on organizing email. The rule number one is to question whether an attachment … Continue reading →

Posted in Automation, Email | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment