We are lucky to be going paperless in a time that all the major platforms (Mac OS X, Windows, Evernote) have great PDF search built right in. If we need to find a document, we have the tools to do it. While we do have the tools, many of us find it overwhelming to actually […]
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I’ve heard many people say that there are two type of technology users – searchers (people who will use document search technologies to access the document or the folder they need) and filers (people who will go navigate through their folders/notebooks to look for the file). These are sometimes referred to as “hunters and gatherers”. […]
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For many people, doing a document search involves typing in a word and hoping for the best. For others, they have a specific document search strategy that they’ve honed over time. There’s another group, and that is people who do some pre-work up front to be able to set themselves up for success when they […]
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There are different ways to search for files on the Mac. Usually I am searching my entire computer for a document, and for that I use Spotlight[1]. Occasionally I am in a Finder window and want to filter the displayed files, and for that I use the Search box in the top-right corner of the […]
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One of the best things about modern operating systems like Mac OS X and Windows 7 and 8 is that search, particularly PDF search, is built right in. You don’t need to have a third party tool to search the contents of a searchable PDF – the OS will do it for you. That is, […]
Continue readingI received a Twitter question from awesome DocumentSnap reader (and awesome sculptor) Carol Griffin. She had a strange issue – after she upgraded to Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks, her scanned PDFs were not being indexed by Spotlight, and therefore she could not find them via search. After trying some 140 character-at-a-time troubleshooting (“Are the […]
Continue readingWindows Search in newer versions of Microsoft Windows works pretty well, but sometimes it is may not be picking up files that you think it should, or perhaps you want to tell it not to search for some files or types of files. This video shows you how to control the Indexing Options for Windows […]
Continue readingI am always going on and on about how I am a fan of searchable PDFs, and search is the main way that I find any document. However, what do you do if you don’t want a document or folder to be able to found by searching your computer? It might sound strange, but you […]
Continue readingA few months ago, Ernest Svenson from PDF For Lawyers wrote a very interesting piece: When should you OCR documents? A quick primer. His premise is that you should be very selective about the documents that you make searchable by applying Optical Character Recognition. Many people know that OCR stands for ‘optical character recognition,’ or […]
Continue readingIf you have a group or type of files that you regularly refer to, Saved Searches in Windows 7 can be really handy. This video shows how to set it up. View the video below, or click here to watch it on YouTube. If you are able to, I recommend that you watch it with […]
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