Different tags for different sections of pdfs?

[Bill_DeVille]

@R. Barre

Let’s say I’ve found the pertinent sections in 10 books that apply to one event, and I’ve made a Group for that event. With your approach, I’d have a text document with ten links in it. If I want to look through these ten documents I have to keep going back to the text document, click on the link, see how many pages it represents, then read those pages.

No, I wouldn’t have one document with ten links. Like you, I would have individual documents for each description of an event by day – and perhaps more than ten, as it’s possible that a book might have multiple references in different sections to that event/day.

I would create summaries in each rich text document that allows me to do at least a first draft of the use I would make of that material. In my rich text notes I can use formatted text, links, images, tables and lists as might be appropriate. Each note is self-documenting as to source, as it is linked to the referred document and (in the case of PDFs) page(s). I could then copy/paste my notes into a more competent word processor, probably Pages, for final editing and polishing, including source references in footnotes or endnotes.

That’s my normal workflow for projects, and it works quite efficiently for me. It also can be accommodated to references of different filetypes, including Word, images, etc. I think I save time in the long run by summarizing information in such notes, often including quoted excerpts of some of the information. When working on a project I’ll create a hierarchical group for it. When finished, I usually move that group out of the database and archive it as a project database, which will include the final product as well (which may be Pages, Word or PDF).

[R_Barre]

Just so I understand … let’s say I have ten descriptions of one event in ten different books. You would create ten separate text documents, each of which would have the link to one book’s description (plus whatever else you chose to write re: that reference)?

[Bill_DeVille]

Yes. When multiple authors discuss the same topic, facts or interpretations may differ. I find it easier to categorize differences by group organization or tags with individual documents than to do that for 10 – let’s say – such interpretations in a single document.