Let us Convert Papers to Imported Tools

[Fabian]

So then they are also searchable with Research.

 

Thanks

 

Greetings

 

Fabian

[senilemonk]

Very much agree!  

[Λύχνις Δαν]

Why convert them rather than simply making them searchable ?

 

Thx

D

[senilemonk]

I would settle for searchable. 

 

The underlying issue for me is twofold. 

 

First is the fact that I use my iPad a lot for speaking events and for study/research.  The current lack of support for papers on ios is inconvenient to say the least.  Printing to pdf for use in another ios app that reads pdf is of course the only option for me when I use papers.  Doing that causes me to lose the advantage of using the Accordance app and the search capabilities that the app offers.  I already did the research using Accordance but the access I have to that information is lost in the app.  I have not used the papers feature much for this very reason. 

 

Secondly (and this is really the heart of my particular issue) is the lack of formatting options within user tools along with the tedium of importing documents into user tools.  I create a LOT of user tools.  I have spent significant time working on the best options for getting my past research papers, documents and message outlines that I have accumulated over the years converted into user tools.  I thought this would be one of the great benefits of making what is for me a significant investment in a bible program.  Having all my previous work along with the incredible research abilities of Accordance makes so much sense.  And it is great once my work is finally imported into Accordance.  However the issue is that getting my previous work into Accordance is an extremely tedious procedure currently.  In particular my message outlines.  I lose a LOT of formatting when importing even using html.  I have a very detailed procedure to convert my documents into html in order to retain as much formatting as possible but it never imports without significant loss of formatting and thus less readability.  I have been in communication with Accordance about this issue and was told that things like hanging indents and general outline features are not possible in user tools currently.  I have been told that adding those abilities would be a "massive undertaking"  because they are "powerful and complex features".  I think it is a very reasonable expectation to have.  I will refrain from going into more detail to support my position on that.  But the bottom line is getting previous research works and message outlines into Accordance is difficult and time consuming to say the least.  So it only makes sense to do the work in Accordance so I don't have to import my research papers and message outlines into Accordance.   For a while my only option was user tools with the formatting limitations. Less than ideal particularly given how often I desire to create outlines.  Then along comes the papers feature in Accordance 12.  It has excellent outline options.  YAY!  Only I come to find out that papers are limited in that they are not searchable and not available on the ios app.  So again I am back to trying to somehow get that information from papers back into a user tools without losing formatting.

 

Apologies, Mithril, because that is probably more of an answer than you were expecting.  I just wanted to give a more complete answer.  

Edited October 30, 2017 by senilemonk

[Λύχνις Δαν]

You highlight a number issues I've seen come up in various posts over the years. I've gone back and forth from thinking that Acc ought to include a full word-processor capabilities to thinking it should be just one part of a tool chain - the OL learning and research tool. I use it in the latter manner.

 

That said though, I agree it makes sense for all Acc-produced content were searchable if for no other reason than that no other software can read the format.

I might add that I don't have a problem if Papers are made convertible to UTs. But introducing that as a necessary precursor to searchability doesn't strike me as efficient. You'd have to keep converting it as you change the Paper.

 

Thx

D