Help me find a personal information manager
February 19, 2018 5:49 AM Subscribe
After a decade of life on Apple computers, I am switching to a Windows-only workplace. I need a replacement for my personal information manager (currently DevonThink Pro Office). There are a lot of features I need; details inside.
* Cross-platform and exportable to open data formats: this is going to be a major transition, and I want to future-proof myself as much as possible. I don't need an open-source product, but I do want something that will work on any computer I get in the future, and that makes it easy to get my data out if necessary.
* Not a subscription service: I'm philosophically opposed to software-as-a-service rental models. I want to own my information and tools, not constantly pay for the privilege of accessing them. I'm willing to pay up front.
* Full PDF searching: I frequently search for text within PDFs. DevonThink Pro Office has an OCR program built in so I can even search image PDFs; that would be awesome but I could survive without it if necessary.
* Relevance searching: My database is tens of thousands of entries, so reading through everything that matches a keyword is prohibitive. DevonThink uses a proprietary method of arranging my search results by relevancy, and it's very good. I want something that will go beyond merely giving me a list of results in alphabetical or chronological order.
* Folders and tags: I use both to organize my database right now. I could possibly do without one of the two, but it would be an unfun transition.
* Stores plain and rich text, videos, audio, and PDFs: I use all of these data formats in my current PIM, and I can't imagine a world in which I would stop
* Ability to sync across the internet: DevonThink allows me to use Dropbox to sync my database across my devices. I'd want something similar, whether through a service like Dropbox or a custom syncing server. My current database is just over 1 GB (including audio and video clips), so something that sync intelligently (as opposed to just reuploading the database each time) is important.
* Hyperlink to other items in the database: I want to create links between items, so a text note can have a hyperlink to a PDF in the database that it references, or so I can have a text transcription of a video that links back to the video entry in the database.
I look forward to your recommendations!
* Cross-platform and exportable to open data formats: this is going to be a major transition, and I want to future-proof myself as much as possible. I don't need an open-source product, but I do want something that will work on any computer I get in the future, and that makes it easy to get my data out if necessary.
* Not a subscription service: I'm philosophically opposed to software-as-a-service rental models. I want to own my information and tools, not constantly pay for the privilege of accessing them. I'm willing to pay up front.
* Full PDF searching: I frequently search for text within PDFs. DevonThink Pro Office has an OCR program built in so I can even search image PDFs; that would be awesome but I could survive without it if necessary.
* Relevance searching: My database is tens of thousands of entries, so reading through everything that matches a keyword is prohibitive. DevonThink uses a proprietary method of arranging my search results by relevancy, and it's very good. I want something that will go beyond merely giving me a list of results in alphabetical or chronological order.
* Folders and tags: I use both to organize my database right now. I could possibly do without one of the two, but it would be an unfun transition.
* Stores plain and rich text, videos, audio, and PDFs: I use all of these data formats in my current PIM, and I can't imagine a world in which I would stop
* Ability to sync across the internet: DevonThink allows me to use Dropbox to sync my database across my devices. I'd want something similar, whether through a service like Dropbox or a custom syncing server. My current database is just over 1 GB (including audio and video clips), so something that sync intelligently (as opposed to just reuploading the database each time) is important.
* Hyperlink to other items in the database: I want to create links between items, so a text note can have a hyperlink to a PDF in the database that it references, or so I can have a text transcription of a video that links back to the video entry in the database.
I look forward to your recommendations!
Oooof.
I gave DT a try years ago, but it never really gelled for me. I found stuffing things into "everything buckets" like DT turned out not to be materially better than text files and a "saved docs" folder given how good search is on OSX.
File system search on windows is worse, but still might get the job done.
This approach would have the advantage of being pretty future proof and platform-agnostic, since everything reads and writes text files.
posted by uberchet at 10:41 AM on February 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
I gave DT a try years ago, but it never really gelled for me. I found stuffing things into "everything buckets" like DT turned out not to be materially better than text files and a "saved docs" folder given how good search is on OSX.
File system search on windows is worse, but still might get the job done.
This approach would have the advantage of being pretty future proof and platform-agnostic, since everything reads and writes text files.
posted by uberchet at 10:41 AM on February 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
And to be VERY VERY CLEAR, OneNote is absolutely not a future-proof format. OneNote is a proprietary database. It's quasi-multiplatform now, but only if you're on Windows or Mac, and Mac support lags Windows.
I would not choose it if you're interested in avoiding file-format lock-in.
However, ON *is* the reigning king of everything-buckets in Windows. It's an app category that flourishes on the Mac side, but that has gotten seriously thin under Windows.
posted by uberchet at 10:52 AM on February 19, 2018 [3 favorites]
I would not choose it if you're interested in avoiding file-format lock-in.
However, ON *is* the reigning king of everything-buckets in Windows. It's an app category that flourishes on the Mac side, but that has gotten seriously thin under Windows.
* Relevance searching: My database is tens of thousands of entries, so reading through everything that matches a keyword is prohibitive. DevonThink uses a proprietary method of arranging my search results by relevancy, and it's very good. I want something that will go beyond merely giving me a list of results in alphabetical or chronological order.I think DT is almost alone in providing this kind of indexing, sad to say.
posted by uberchet at 10:52 AM on February 19, 2018 [3 favorites]
Evernote checks most of your boxes.
It is mostly a subscription service - you can use it for free but you will not have some features available like searching PDFs.
Not sure about "relevance searching" though. It does have a feature where it will try to show you things related to your current note, but I found it annoying and turned it off.
There are clients for Windows, Macs, the web, and phones/tablets. No official Linux client but there are ones that sync with it.
posted by egypturnash at 8:21 PM on February 19, 2018
It is mostly a subscription service - you can use it for free but you will not have some features available like searching PDFs.
Not sure about "relevance searching" though. It does have a feature where it will try to show you things related to your current note, but I found it annoying and turned it off.
There are clients for Windows, Macs, the web, and phones/tablets. No official Linux client but there are ones that sync with it.
posted by egypturnash at 8:21 PM on February 19, 2018
To add to my and @uberchet's comment, OneNote is an example of a new and improved Microsoft. It's true that OneNote format is proprietary, but there are a few example of OneNote export.
posted by aeighty at 10:09 AM on February 20, 2018
posted by aeighty at 10:09 AM on February 20, 2018
(Having been burned before with supposedly friendly MSFT file formats, and being aware of the nature of data in everything-buckets, I would be REALLY REALLY circumspect at dumping this kind of corpus into anything proprietary, including and especially OneNote -- "new MSFT" be damned.)
posted by uberchet at 11:25 AM on February 20, 2018
posted by uberchet at 11:25 AM on February 20, 2018
« Older Safely eating in Korea and Japan with seafood... | Help me embrace being bad at hobbies (without... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by aeighty at 9:57 AM on February 19, 2018