I believe RightNote does this but without internal file preview. WizNote also comes to mind but since it's tied to a Chinese cloud, makes me a bit nervous. Any other note takers/information managers that allow to attach document files and index the contents for instant search. TIA

PS. I've received some feedback from TagSpaces developer and looks like that is the direction they are aiming for but who knows when we will get to test it out.

Few mentions (mainly Win based):
-Ultrarecall (with results: PDFs turned to raw text) /Win
-TheBrain (with partial results: first pages -customizable - of PDFs turned to raw text - some issues with some settings&version: see other thread) /Win-Mac
-Zotero (no text results: indexing PDFs possible with PDFtoText plugin. ) /Win-Mac
-MyInfo ? (rumors for the next version 7) /Win

Ultra Recall is particularly adept at this. I rely on its ability to search and display all the time. TheBrain would be another good choice, but my experience with its ability to search within attachments has been exasperating. It does not work for me and on the occasion when it does, the results are unreliable.

Jon

Zoot does have the ability for the import of the file types listed, plus many other features (that can be a hinderance). Using just as a note taker/info library is very doable.

Once Tom finishes the help / manual all will be good in the end.

Thank you for the tips. I just finished test driving Zoot, The Brain and UltraRecall and seems like all of them perform some sort of file conversion to extract metadata. Therefore, you don't get to see the attached files in their original form when previewed inside. They tend to get distorted. UltraRecall also relies on MS Office, similar to another outliner called TreeProjects.
Although more of a document manager, Lucion FileCenter utilizes Oracle Outside In Viewers that virtually display document files in their native format. However, it doesn't have a rich text editor for note taking. I think this is showing a big gap that not too many developers have been considering to fill in. :-(
What makes me wonder even more, how could a software giant like Microsoft not see this need with OneNote. All they've done is fake it by converting imported documents to images. What a joke.

MotionTwelve wrote:

Thank you for the tips. I just finished test driving Zoot, The Brain
and UltraRecall and seems like all of them perform some sort of file
conversion to extract metadata. Therefore, you don't get to see the
attached files in their original form when previewed inside. They tend
to get distorted. UltraRecall also relies on MS Office, similar to
another outliner called TreeProjects.
Although more of a document manager, Lucion FileCenter utilizes Oracle
Outside In Viewers that virtually display document files in their
native format. However, it doesn't have a rich text editor for note
taking. I think this is showing a big gap that not too many developers
have been considering to fill in. :-(
What makes me wonder even more, how could a software giant like
Microsoft not see this need with OneNote. All they've done is fake it
by converting imported documents to images. What a joke.

I think I must have misread your initial post. I thought you were looking for applications that 1) import .doc and .pdf and others; and 2) search in those files. I think people here have suggested a number of applications that do both of those things. But now I think I understand that my saying "import" maybe you meant also "preview and edit'? And you want something that allows editing Office docs *without* MS Office installed (and Acrobat docs without Acrobat pro installed)? I assume that you don't want Office installed because it sounds like that's what you find deficient about Ultrarecall? And it has to do this all offline? If so I see why you are having trouble finding it. I suspect that developers would not be inteested in filling this need because it sounds like a very unusual set of requirements for which there would be maybe a market of 1. Generally the type of user who is interested in powerful information management will also have MS Office installed and will be online.

Please clarify if I am misunderstanding your requirements.

Note that if I'm wrong and you are not looking for preview/edit functionality then in addition to those others have mentioned, Evernote does what you are asking for but you have to go online.
If you are OK having office installed then why not try Outlook? It does basically everything you are looking for if I understand correcly.

dan7000 wrote:

I think I must have misread your initial post. I thought you were
looking for applications that 1) import .doc and .pdf and others; and 2)
search in those files. I think people here have suggested a number of
applications that do both of those things. But now I think I understand
that my saying "import" maybe you meant also "preview and edit'? And
you want something that allows editing Office docs *without* MS Office
installed (and Acrobat docs without Acrobat pro installed)? I assume
that you don't want Office installed because it sounds like that's what
you find deficient about Ultrarecall? And it has to do this all offline?
If so I see why you are having trouble finding it. I suspect that
developers would not be inteested in filling this need because it sounds
like a very unusual set of requirements for which there would be maybe a
market of 1. Generally the type of user who is interested in powerful
information management will also have MS Office installed and will be
online.

Please clarify if I am misunderstanding your requirements.

Note that if I'm wrong and you are not looking for preview/edit
functionality then in addition to those others have mentioned, Evernote
does what you are asking for but you have to go online.
If you are OK having office installed then why not try Outlook? It does
basically everything you are looking for if I understand correcly.

As far as I know, Outlook can mainly index attached MS Office files but doesn't highlight search keyword hits inside of the documents. Also, it won't index PDFs and many other popular formats. As you've already mentioned, the only one that does this properly with PDFs is Evernote but I would like to avoid having to sync with the cloud. However, I believe last time I checked Evernote was also limited with how it handled MS Office formats.
To clarify, I am not looking for a note taker which can edit all of these complex document formats internally. That would be asking for something almost impossible. For that purpose, of course, it's best to use the designated apps. What I am looking for, however, is a way to quickly search for keywords inside of the attached files straight from the note taker app and visually see the results inside. Once I find a particular file that I want to edit, I can then easily open it with the native app and apply the changes which will then be re-indexed by the note taker app.
Maybe including these features as addons would be a good idea since many indexers and file viewers can be integrated in such a way (DTSearch, Oracle Outside In, Apache Lucene, etc).
I am crossing my fingers that MyInfo v7 might include something similar. I think it would really open up doors how we mange today's information overload.

You could try ELOoffice
https://www.elo.com/wcm/en/products/elooffice
It is more a DMS than a notetaker but will do what you want to do.

Orchid wrote:

You could try ELOoffice
https://www.elo.com/wcm/en/products/elooffice
It is more a DMS than a notetaker but will do what you want to do.

From their website, it looks very promising. I will be trying it later today. Does it also provide rich text editor to take quick notes/tasks?
Thank you!

Yes, programs that highlight search hits n various document types are rare in the desktop software world. Law firms use that type of software all the time to review documents, but most of the types used by law firms are hosted or at least network-based and of course really expensive. One of the simplest -- which maybe could run on a local desktop - is called Concordance.

But try Qiqqa. It is made to host documents online but when you download the client it lets you use one "local library" of documents. If you just use that one and delete the cloud-based libraries it never goes online, as far as I can tell. It stores, indexes and searches all types of documents, and lets you add annotations to documents and tag both documents and annotations. Unfortunately with a library of about .5 GB of PDFs it started getting to slow to use at all on my machine, so I stopped using it.

Now that I understand what you are looking for I totally agree: this is a gap in the available software that is prime for someone to fill. Software that can search and show search hits in a native-looking preview of the document, plus allow notes and tags, is way overpriced -- and yet it does hardly more than what Evernote does. Time for some disruption in that market.

Thanks for these recommendations. I've tried both Concordance and Qiqqa and they both have some cool features but I couldn't get in the flow, especially with Concordance. Also, are you sure that Qiqqa can index MS Office files? From the description and my tests it looks like it mainly handles PDFs. Also, I test drove ELOOffice but it seems to aim at specific market and IMO is not the best tool for personal day-to-day document management.
TreeProjects is also a very interesting app but there has been not much development over the last year. I allows to search withing attached docs and uses MS Office and PDF reader to display files inside. I think file managers have big potential here since they already contain lots of this functionality

If you are interested in finding files with your search, rather than showing results, let me mention another good piece of software:

mybase 7 (http://www.wjjsoft.com
In its previous versions it was Win only. Now it runs also on Mac and Linux. Before v7, it was very stable and very good in dealing with rtf files. Now it went to major changes, with a better interface, and some deep changes (no longer rtf native). Yet in the current built it seems stable too, and very well coded (it is fast, contrary to other outliners)

For your needs: if you have already installed ifilter PDF (from Adobe or Foxit), -or if you install it with mybase - it captures the contents of the pdf (besides .doc, .txt, .mht, etc) files that are attached or simply linked to its outliner. The fact that captures also the linked files, seems quite interesting. No text results though. For them you need Foxit reader or Xchange viewer. With ifilter installed They show text results of all your pdfs in the HDD or in a specific folder.

MyBase v7 is definitely looking much better compared to the previous versions. I've tried importing few MS Office and PDF files but the results were hit and miss. So far, the only note taker that overall did a good job with file conversion was WizNote. I believe it uses Kingsoft office (aka WPS office) libraries for conversion.
I think at this point it might be too difficult to find what I am after. I might just have to combine multiple tools to get the job done.
If we omit MS Office and PDF support, what would you recommend for on-the-fly rich text note taker with table and image support, tabs (lockable that remember layout on exit), fast-as-you-type search, opening notes in individual windows, and note title filtering that is still fully offline?

I just discovered a very interesting product called KnowHowDb. It's a Swiss knowledge manager that seems to support MS Office and PDF formats and has an advanced editor. I've already signed up for the demo but haven't received any emails yet. I believe the latest major version is 6. Anybody else has tried this app?