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Why no love for TagNotate?
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Posted by Mirce
Oct 9, 2018 at 12:28 PM
I was suprised to find very few references to TagNotate here on outlinersoftware.com (to be precise, only two short references, in a thread discussing octopusnotes). Given the fact that a great deal of discussions here focus on MacOS software (and to a lesser degree to iOS), this is quite strange.
For those who did not hear about this app, it is a pdf-reader and annotator, but it has some unique functionality that I didn’t find in any other app, either on Windows or Android. The most useful features are:
- you can underline (highlight) and annotate parts of pdf files and tag every annotation INDIVIDUALLY. So, tags are not based on the pdf file, but on its contents.
- you can search inside the pdfs in your library with full text search but also with tags; you can “drill down” to your search by selecting multiple tags from the tag-cloud (using AND / OR operators). TN shows the pdf files which contain the selected tags and also a preview of the annotation.
- after you have drilled down enough, you can export the results to the clippboard and use it for further study. To be clear: the export contains only the annotated portions of the pdf’s, not the whole pdf’s.
- the library of TN allows “virtual folders”, meaning one pdf can be in several virtual folders (or collections). When you select the virtual folder / collection, the tag-cloud only shows tags which are contained in the pdf’s in this specific locations.
Why is that important (at least for my workflows)?
When I read non-fiction books, they tend to be from various fields - Physics, Psychology, History, Politics, Pop Science, Economics etc. Things which I find interesting are highlighted and tagged according to my pre-defined tag-list. When I want to focus on one area of my interests, I dril down with the tag-search, and copy all the info associated with those tags for further studying. This way, I often see connections between areas which are at first look not related.
As I said, TN is unfortunately available only on apple OS’s. I use it primarily on my iPad, as I have no Mac (I have MacOS virtualized through VirtualBox on Windows, however it is no joy working in this because of the lag).
I really wish there would be a Windows (or Android) app like this, ideally with some note-taking addition (or is there?)
On a related note: Why are tag-implementations on note taking / outliner applications so weak? For example MyInfo, which is my main note taker. You can assign multiple tags to a document (but not on a specific part of the document), but you can filter / search only according to ONE TAG. This is the same with every other note taker which I tried (MyNotes Keeper, RightNote, MyBase, CherryNotes…). Am I the only one who would find such a thing useful or is it so difficult to implement?
What is your take on Tagnotate? Do you find the concept useful or are the use-cases in your cases too exotic?
Are there any other apps which are similar regarding this functionality? (and I mean really similar, not “similar.to” like similar).
(BTW, I am in no way affiliated with the authors of TN except that I bought the app on my iPad. The app has its shortcomings: no updates in a long time, you cannot rename a tag and deleting the tag involves deleting are instances it is assigned to….)
Posted by Dellu
Oct 9, 2018 at 04:04 PM
Mirce wrote:
>What is your take on Tagnotate? Do you find the concept useful or are
>the use-cases in your cases too exotic?
>Are there any other apps which are similar regarding this functionality?
>(and I mean really similar, not “similar.to” like similar).
I have tried Tagnotate. I think I was a bit worried that the annotations made with the app are not visible other pdf reading applications.
But, I love the idea of tagging paragraphs (bullet points) and being able to drill down into the individual tags. That is exactly why I have been using Atlas.Ti, Nvivo and MaxQda. Almost all the quantitative data analysis software follow the same strategy. You annotate a specific part (paragraph), quote it as well in the case of Atlas Ti, and tag (code it). You can then construct a collection of documents or quotations across documents using the tags.
It is a very neat way of reading and processing information. I find Atlas Ti much more efficient because of the quotations; and that I can write comments, titles, and summaries to the quotations. But, the license is very expensive.
I paid a hefty cost; and works only for 2 years. That has been a big problem to me.
Thank you for bringing Tagnotate to our attention. I will check it again (if it can replace at least part of the functions of the Atlas Ti).
Posted by satis
Oct 9, 2018 at 08:56 PM
I confess I’d never heard of it. Looks pretty interesting. PDF manual here:
http://www.tagnotate.com/wp-content/uploads/Getting-Started.pdf
Quick search shows it’s bee around for a couple of years. A couple of 2015, 2016 articles about the app here:
http://www.betaboston.com/news/2015/04/15/tagnotate-is-the-rap-genius-for-researchers/
http://stage-directions.com/stagemanagement/8486-the-best-line-note-app-ever-made.html
Posted by Mirce
Oct 10, 2018 at 06:26 AM
Dellu wrote:
>I have tried Tagnotate. I think I was a bit worried that the annotations
>made with the app are not visible other pdf reading applications.
I just checked this by sending an annotated pdf from TagNotate to PDFViewer and GoodReader - the highlights and notes taken in TN are are correctly transferred, i.e. visible. However, the tags are not shown of course.
>That is exactly why I have >been using Atlas.Ti, Nvivo and MaxQda. Almost all the quantitative data >analysis software follow the same strategy. You annotate a specific part
>(paragraph), quote it as well in the case of Atlas Ti, and tag (code >it). You can then construct a collection of documents or quotations
>across documents using the tags.
>It is a very neat way of reading and processing information. I find
>Atlas Ti much more efficient because of the quotations; and that I can
>write comments, titles, and summaries to the quotations. But, the
>license is very expensive.
>I paid a hefty cost; and works only for 2 years. That has been a big
>problem to me.
I must confess that I never heard of these applications. They seem really powerfull, but also daunting. Especially this commenting on the quotations seems very useful.
But the price of Atlas Ti - really frightening. 930€ for a single user, non-commercial license. :(
BTW, I contacted the developer of TN regarding a Windows version - no plans for that he answered.
Posted by Mirce
Oct 10, 2018 at 06:32 AM
satis wrote:
I confess I’d never heard of it. Looks pretty interesting. PDF manual
>here:
>
>http://www.tagnotate.com/wp-content/uploads/Getting-Started.pdf
>
Just a heads-up: The manual is wrong in some aspects, i.e. last time I checked, it mentioned that you can rename and delete tags; this is not possible. In order to rename a tag, you have to manually delete it in every instance (for every annotation to which it was given) and then again assign the renamed (new) tag.
I check periodically for mentions of apps I like (TagNotate, Flexcil, LiquidNotes…) in order to find discussions and possible new use cases. Strangely, when searching for TagNotate there are more links explaining how to remove (uninstall) TagNotate for MacOS than links to reviews of this app.