Hi,

I just found this site.... lots of great stuff!

I just started a new job and have a ton of new information that I have to store & organize. New job = alot of new knowledge. I need a software product to store all this new STUFF!

I'm trying to find an information manager that can do the following:

#1. Manage documents (pdf, word, excel powerpoint...) would like the app to index the words and have a file viewer.(Like Copernic Desktop Search)

#2. Have a nice outliner

#3. Have an easy way to "shoot" data into the app like Zoot or Ecco. For example... shoot info from an email into my knowledge base.

I have tried Zoot, but it will not handle pdf or big word docs (but I love the "Zooter")

Ultra Recall comes close... indexes docs, but it doesn't have a file viewer... no "shooter"

InfoSelect doesn't seems to index the documents. No "shooter"

Any ideas????

Thanks for your help!


Regards,

-jj

Well you have come to the right place with your question, as I'm confidant that if an application with the characteristics you describe existed, somebody on this list would know of it. I am even tempted to go further and say that if such an application existed, each of us would probably know of it.

Which is to say, unfortunately, that no such application exists.As you point out, Zoot has everything except the ability to handle large Word documents; (on this I take your word, as I am not a Zoot user; after all it isn't really an outliner, which might take it out of contention on that ground, unless you have very liberal criteria for outliners. Ultra Recall does everything except shoot; and I might add, ADM 3 probably does most everything, except it doesn't index.

I would add that you might consider Idea! (http://sycon.de It indexes and even integrates with the Windows index system; has excellent importing, particularly from email; and has an effective even though unconventional outliner. Since you mention e-mail specifically, my guess is that Idea! would come closest to what you want, even though it doesn't fully satisfy your criteria. Because it is unconventional, it has a bit of a learning curve. Technical support is excellent.

Stephen R. Diamond

I have tried Zoot, but it will not handle pdf or big word docs

What exactly do you want here?

I use a combination of Zoot and DTSearch (but there are of course free alternatives to DTSearch). DTsearch opens most files in a viewer, Zoot opens in the native application.

I convert PDFs to text with Omnipage 14 - a bit of pain, but as some PDFs are "image files" rather than "text files" they need converted regardless of the program being used for searching. I batch process these when I am doing something else.

The converted files are left in the same folder as the original PDFs, keep the same name but have a txt extension instead of a PDF extension.

Zoot is then set up to sync with the txt files in Windows folder containing both the PDFs and txt files, and to import the first 32k of text from each text file into Zoot.

This allows searching all the files in the Windows folder and being able to read the first 32kb of text form inside Zoot. Once converetd to text files 32kb is a lot of pages.

When I find a file I am interested in. I change the file extension link in Zoot from txt to PDF and Zoot opens the PDF for viewing. You can set up Zoot to automatically change the extensions as you perform the link operation, but I haven't bothered.

The same process is used for DOC files except there is no need to convert to txt.

The real advantages of this is that Zoot automatically syncs with the PDF and DOC folders so whenever you add a file to it, you don't need to do anything in Zoot, the new files just appear when you open the folder. It also keeps the Zoot files relatively small.

The actual content in Zoot is restricted to the first 32K, but it actually searches the whole linked file (or so I am told, I cannot see this in the Help)

DTSearch is a backup for anything I might have missed bringing into Zoot but is still lurking in my hard drive somewhere, but of course even DTSearch won't search image based PDFs, of which I seem to get rather a lot - hence the need for an OCR program (Omnipage) to convert them to text for searching.

Mind you I wouldn't really call Zoot an Outliner. Most people here use a combination of programs. My combination is Zoot and DTSearch for general data management and Brainstorm and NoteMap for outlining, plus a mind mapping program(s)

Hope this helps.

Graham

Thanks Guys for the info...

****Stephen

" Ultra Recall does everything except shoot; and I might add, ADM 3"
UR does not have a file viewer either.

What is ADM 3????????

I'll give Idea a try.

****Graham
"What exactly do you want here?" re:pdf & other docs...

I'm starting a new job at a new company & there is a ton of docs and learning required. I want to create a "knowledge Base" where I can easily store, link, search and review all this knowledge. This is why indexing is important. If I could just put Copernic DTS into Zoot, it would be perfect!

In the mean time.... I just bumped into "KnowledgeWorkshop" and it appears to have some promise..... indexes, file viewer,note taker, outliner???..... but no shooter...

Any comments on this product???????

The quest for the "Holy Grail" continues :-)

Thanks again for your input!!!

Regards,

-jj

Hi,

Try these tools:

ADM 3 (http://www.adm21.net
It has a shooter and is a very nice outliner but it does not index files. Word, Excel and pdf files can be previewed within ADM. It has a very useful Metadata and Keyword systeem. Please note that ADM 4 will be released soon with a lot of very useful features. It is my prefered tool.

asksam 6 (http://www.asksam.com
This is a freeform text database. It is not easy to learn but has very strong search and index capabilities and it not particularly an outliner even the new version added some features in this direction. The pro version is very expensive (around US$ 400).

MyBase Desktop edition (http://www.wjjsoft.com/mbs_desktop_screenshot.html
I don't know this program. But it seems worth to check for your requirements.

Other applications worth considering: Zoot, UltraRecall, Black Hole Organizer, MDE Inforhandler

Dominik

Thanks to all for your insights....

***Graham

I like your ideas.... but it maybe too much work, plus I want to view the docs in their native format... I hope the next gen Zoot addresses these issues because it seems like a great product.

***Peter
Thanks for the link!

***Daly
"between Knowledge Workshop and UltraRecall, I think UR wins hands down"... Could you please give me a little more info on this. After loading just about every product & playing with them, I have narrowed the field to UR and KWS... One key differnce I have noticed is tech support.... I sent questions to both companies at the same time....UR contated me within 3 hours !!! KWS, still no word...

***Dominik

Thanks for the suggestions.... Heres my thoughts...

ADM... when you drag an email from Outlook it only copies the to:, from: and subject: field but does not bring in the body of the message... maybe I'm doing something wrong??? Same thing with KWS

AskSam.... Too powerful .... too much $$$ .... more than I can handle or use

MyBaseDesktop.... Just downloaded.... will get back with comments

Zoot.... Nice but 16 bit, can't view files in native format

Regards,

-jj