What's a good way for organizing PDF documents on Windows?

I'm looking for a good way to manage a lot of PDF documents (e.g. papers, ebooks) on Windows. Ideally I'm looking for a Windows version of the great Mac app Yep.

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I've looked quite a bit and haven't found any Windows apps that provide an organized overview of your PDF documents.

I've considered just tagging the PDF files, but there don't seem to be any apps to simply tag and search tagged files easily. I've found TaggedFrog, but the tags are kept in the app's internal DB and are associated with the filename. If you move/rename a file it loses all its tags.

In a nutshell:

Is there a good Windows app to organize/efficiently tag files?

Ivan

Posted 2009-09-18T10:03:54.020

Reputation: 336

Some references in a similar question: What is your method of “folksonomy” tagging for files on your local machine?

– nik – 2009-09-18T10:37:42.033

Answers

Try Mendeley Desktop: you can tag documents, you can create collections, you can have it automatically sort your PDFs (as well as some other formats) into directories/subdirectories, you can keep bibliographic information that is ready to be used as citation/reference in MS Office and/or OpenOffice.Org resp. Libre Office. You can even sync documents of your choosing (for example several collections) online, and sync them across all of the computers that you have. (Mendeley is cross platform - I'm currently using it on Windows 7 and Ubuntu.) You can even share your collections with other people.

Oh yeah, did I mention that it's free to use. (Up to 500 MB of documents synced and accessible online.) :D

techtechmo

Posted 2009-09-18T10:03:54.020

Reputation: 314

Freaking awesome! Thanks so much! I actually need it for scientific papers, so Mendeley seems perfect. – Ivan – 2009-09-18T15:52:51.660

Glad to have helped. I also use it to organize technical paper, and to share related lit. with my research partners. :) – techtechmo – 2009-09-19T11:57:04.237

Mendeley Desktop seems great for personal use but you mentioned that you needed it for scientific research. Then maybe you should ask your organization to invest in software like nVivo.

I cannot say much about this particular program, never used it myself, but my friend is using it at her university coupled with tools like EndNote.

One of the interesting features I saw there was a possibility of taking snippets from pdfs, either text or images, and cataloguing them, having each snipped backlinking to the source document. And there is loads more. I suggest watching some videos on youtube to find out more.

Johnny Baloney

Posted 2009-09-18T10:03:54.020

Reputation: 397

Try looking over this article. There seem to be a lot of solutions for managing PDFs.

alex

Posted 2009-09-18T10:03:54.020

Reputation: 16 172

Mendeley Desktop is mentioned on that article, which is very good. – None – 2009-09-18T15:22:50.817

Citeulike.com

Adobe Bridge

admintech

Posted 2009-09-18T10:03:54.020

Reputation: 6 970

Acrobat Professional - Similar to the File Browser in other Adobe products, the Organizer keeps track of the locations of all your PDF files that you work with, you have quick and easy access to all your PDF documents.

You can also create collections and favorites as well as preview, sort, e-mail, and assemble your PDF files directly from within the Organizer.

Molly7244

Posted 2009-09-18T10:03:54.020

Reputation:

1Isn't Acrobat Professional a bit pricey? Oh my, just looked at the Adobe site; it's $449. That's an arm and a leg in Romanian currency :) – alex – 2009-09-18T10:24:02.293

Ivan did ask for 'good' not cheap or free, didn't he? :) – None – 2009-09-18T10:35:43.847

He did, I know that :). Adobe Professional is probably a pretty good solution to his problem. – alex – 2009-09-18T10:46:51.530

I'm sure Adobe Professional is good, but the organisational aspect is only a subpart of this huge things. I find it to be a bit overkill. – Ivan – 2009-09-18T15:59:16.763

since you mentioned eBooks, i was thinking of Calibre (eBook Management software) first, but i don't think it is exactly what you're looking for. have a look anyway, it's free: http://calibre.kovidgoyal.net/

– None – 2009-09-18T16:15:57.540

Yeah I tried Calibre, but the user experience was just bad. – Ivan – 2009-09-19T09:19:20.263