Tagging Technology on My Local Machine

December 22, 2005 1:28 PM

Is there software available that lets me use tagging (a la del.icio.us and Flickr) to tag Word (or other) files on my local computer? Here's the scenario. I am new to a job where I write a lot of reports. Although these aren't cookie cutter reports, it is often helpful to look at old reports when writing new ones. I would love to be able to organize them by overlapping themes so the collection of files is more useful to me. Instead of reinventing the wheel, I'd like to be able to plug in a few tag words and find just what I need. Can you help?
posted by abbyladybug to Computers & Internet (15 answers total)

Similar previous question.
posted by smackfu at 1:33 PM on December 22, 2005

Response by poster: Oh thanks. I searched for "tagging" and not "tag-based" so didn't get the right results. I'll still leave this question in case there is any updated info on this topic since the last question was posted. If it seems not, I'll take it down.
posted by abbyladybug at 1:37 PM on December 22, 2005

In abbyladybug's defense, the previous question on the same topic doesn't actually contain an answer. IMO the most promising thing it had was a suggestion to do it yourself in an excel spreadsheet. I can think of a few bad ways to do that, but I wonder if someone who has done it could share a good way that's worked well for them.
posted by Xalf at 2:10 PM on December 22, 2005

Google Desktop won't cut it?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 2:25 PM on December 22, 2005

Maybe something like The Brain? (or similar projects)

Another way that seems more sensible if it can actually work is to add metadata to your source files and then search on that (this way your metadata travels with the file, rather than being a separate database).

Eg, in MS Word go to File | Properties and add metadata there, and then search with Google Desktop. Now the bad news is that I've no idea if that even works but here's hoping some local search software can index that stuff, eh?
posted by holloway at 2:34 PM on December 22, 2005

Google's desktop search will scan and index your Word files.

That's invaluable for me and might be a start at what you need.

Word docs do have a section for category and keywords (File->Properties->Summary tab) but I'm not sure if Google searches those tags or not.
posted by deanj at 2:37 PM on December 22, 2005

Why can't you just use del.icio.us? Does it not allow file://... URIs?
posted by bpt at 3:10 PM on December 22, 2005

wikipad?


You could filelink it and use keywords. Difficult to use though, if you're not a wiki user.
posted by Sallysings at 3:12 PM on December 22, 2005

Am I to assume this is Windows? I suspect yes, and if so I can't help you.

If this happens to be a Mac, it's trivially easy on OS X v10.4
posted by teece at 3:18 PM on December 22, 2005

I second MacOS X 10.4. If you get the chance to try it, you may just want to buy an iBook for this purpose alone!

Well, okay, maybe not, but Spotlight searching makes what you want pretty darned easy, and it's built right into the OS.
posted by Wild_Eep at 4:11 PM on December 22, 2005

Response by poster: No. Google Desktop isn't really what I'm after. So the thing is that I'm a psychologist. I do a lot of reports about children. It would be helpful for me to be able to tag a file "ADHD" and "fosterchild" and "lowprocessingspeed," etc. A lot of times the actual words aren't really in the text of the file. And most reports I write will have the term "processing speed" in them yet won't necessarily be about a processing speed deficit. A file I might tag "custodybattle" certainly won't mention that within the text. There are many categories I wouldn't specifically name within the report, because oftentimes, the wording is done in a very delicate way.

And no, I didn't find any great answers in that other thread, so if anyone comes up with something better, I'd like to know.

I use a PC, not a Mac. And I need to stay PC since I just got a new laptop AND my office doesn't use Mac so compatibility is problematic.

And I use del.icio.us a lot, but I can't put any of these files online (even if they are private). The files are just WAY too sensitive for that.
posted by abbyladybug at 4:49 PM on December 22, 2005

Response by poster: Files Notes Organizer 3.5 seems promising at first glance.
posted by abbyladybug at 4:57 PM on December 22, 2005

File Notes Organizer was the first thing that came to my mind, as I've looked for something like this too. But for myself, I might try to hold out for Windows Longhorn, which is to include both systemwide search and file tagging, per Cnet.
posted by Tubes at 11:43 PM on December 22, 2005

AskSam looks like the bit of terrific you might be after.

In a pinch, is there a remote possibility that Word's in-built File->Properties->Keywords field is grabbed by Google's index? Or by Windows' normal search?

AskSam seems to be exactly what you're after.
posted by disillusioned at 2:34 AM on December 23, 2005

Response by poster: Oh thank you. I'll look into that right now. :D
posted by abbyladybug at 4:54 AM on December 23, 2005