#173) Researching Cultural Background

[Alistair]

Hi Rick,

 

I don't read PDFs on my iPad or iPhone, so that isn't an issue for me.

I usually use a 27" iMac (big screen, fast processor) and a 15" MBP when mobile/portable.

I don't annotate the PDFs either—I copy passages into Pages documents and add my annotations etc that way.

Or into Scrivener for larger, more complicated projects.

Then each PDF is "virgin" every time I come to it, and I am not constrained by previous comments or annotations.

 

I also have PDF Expert, which allows a somewhat smoother experience of reading and does some editing tasks better than Acrobat Pro.

I have mentioned this elsewhere but I use Foxtrot Pro to index and search the files (all kinds of documents, not just PDFs).

I've not found any viable alternatives to this, it really is the workhorse of my preaching/research workflow.

[spotlight? Meh…]

 

This workflow will help me find what I'm looking or, assuming I know what I am looking for.

What it will not do is distinguish between "Martin Luther" and "Martin Luther King", and then let me know that Philip Melanchthon was an associate of the former, and that Rosa Parks is connected with the latter. Apparently to do that I need data mining or text mining software, or to learn the programming language R, and write my own code. But the first developer to write a program that will do that for under £100 will get my money for sure. Any fule kno that.

 

Alistair