A program for storing files on a computer. "Document Archive" - a program for organizing documents

It’s not for nothing that they say that laziness is the engine of progress. Personally, it motivates me to constantly search for some ways to simplify everyday life. My internal radar, tuned to the perception of new information, helps me with this. As soon as I hear about something new in an area that interests me, I try to immediately check whether it will be useful for me.

Sometimes I consciously look for solutions to organize information, the flow of which overwhelms me daily and hourly. And then I try to dig up more, select the best options and try them in practice in order to settle on the most convenient one and use it for a long time.

The most amazing thing is that often these programs are very close, you just need another person, free time or a specific task to “discover America” for yourself personally. Since I regularly have to open the eyes of my friends to those information organization tools that are at hand and don’t even cost money, today I want to talk about the three most powerful of them (in my subjective opinion). Perhaps some of them will be useful to you too.

1. MS OneNote is truly an invisible program and a gold find. It lives in the Windows office suite, starting with MS Office 2003, but most of my friends have not heard anything about it. It is essentially a notepad program with several levels of hierarchy allowing you to create notebooks, sections, pages and subpages.

Suitable for systematizing and storing any information that usually hangs out on your desktop and in “My Documents”, in the best case, organized into folders - text, pictures, entire pages from the Internet directly with links, audio and video files. For example, you can store in it:

information on a specific topic for later selection - if you choose a vacuum cleaner, telephone, car or time management courses
information about purchases - where and for how much you bought them, warranty periods
information about documents, especially if you often have to fill out some data electronically
information about your clients, students
recipes
plans
any lists:
- wish list,
- gifts that your friends would be delighted with,
- books you have read or would like to read
- movies you would like to watch and your impressions
travel information, travel packing lists
your diary, key events that you would like to keep in memory, notes from travel
notes of books read, course notes, your own articles, drafts and sketches
craft ideas
swipe files
drawings and notes

The program's possibilities are endless. You can choose the type of “background”, edit the text in every possible way, make lists with checkboxes (for ticking), and draw notes. You can use tags - keywords, or just use the search.

There are versions for android, iOs and OSX. For Apple lovers, there is also a paid Outline program: for IOS - a full version, for MacOS only a version for reading ready-made notes is currently available. Its advantage is that notebooks can only be stored on a computer.

I think the only worthy competitor to OneNote is Evernote. You might have seen a green elephant on your phone or tablet - that’s her. The essence of the program is the same. The notes are presented in a slightly different format. Initially focused on synchronization with mobile devices via the Internet. She has restrictions on using her free account. But this program can be used on both Apple platforms and older versions of Android.

Linux users can try Keynote(not to be confused with the presentation program from Apple) - convenient, but, in my opinion, not as friendly for an untrained user as the first two.

2. I consider programs for creating memory maps to be the second most important convenience - mind maps. For many years I have been using different programs to graphically represent various information. In particular:

For article plans
for book notes, lectures, preparing exam questions
detailed planning for achieving goals
event planning
searching for solutions

The undisputed leader of such programs, in my opinion, is Mind Manager- this is the most convenient program, but at the same time the most expensive. Cheaper option - Xmind. It has a free version - you can make maps for your own use, but you won't be able to export to pdf to show to a friend who doesn't have the program installed.

The most affordable option Freemind— it is free, intuitive and suitable for any platform.

3. For a very long time I was looking for one that was convenient for me. scheduler. Since I am not a very rational person, and can hardly act clearly according to a plan, I needed a flexible planning program that would not become a graveyard of unfulfilled things, without being too primitive. It would be equally important in this case to have synchronization with a phone or tablet, so that you can look into it on the go or write down something new.

Nowadays there are a huge number of planners of varying degrees of complexity. And perhaps my choice will be a bad decision for those who prefer to build all their plans in a single structure in one place, or have many time-based tasks. I prefer daily planning on paper, so the planner program serves me primarily as an overview of all planned tasks (in fact, for me this is an electronic version of the Autofocus system).

So my winner's name is Wunderlist. At first the program seemed very simple to me, until I discovered that it had subtasks and space for additional information. That is, if in the “Order” topic I have the item “Give away unnecessary things,” then inside I can make a list of things, as well as a list of places where I can go for this.

In the paid version of the program, you can even attach files and send tasks to other people. Although for most, free will be enough. Even though the program asks you to register, you can use the standalone version of the program indefinitely, and register only when you decide to synchronize information on your computer and phone.

Wunderlist allows you to highlight important events, set deadlines and reminders, including for recurring events.

The program is available for Windows, all Apple platforms, Android and as a web application.

Here are the top three. What programs do you use to make your life easier? Write in the comments, I will be glad to learn something new.

Working with documents takes a lot of time from users, especially office workers. But there are many programs that can significantly optimize manual labor when working with documents by automating some processes. Many of these solutions are easy to use, very convenient and inexpensive, and therefore available to a wide range of users. Such programs will be discussed in this article.

Document organization

Users who have to deal with a large number of electronic documents are well aware of the situation when, even despite a strict system of catalogs and subdirectories, it takes a lot of time to find the right document. One of the options for solving this problem is to use a special cataloging program, the main task of which is to organize and sort data, which ultimately ensures a quick search for the necessary information. There are a huge variety of such catalogers on the market, and all of them are focused on cataloging either disks, folders and files, or some highly specialized information (movies, coins, stamps, etc.). Any universal cataloger that allows you to catalog folders and files of different types is suitable for cataloging documents. The best among such solutions is the WhereIsIt package (http://www.whereisit-soft.com/), but it is quite expensive, and its capabilities are clearly redundant for many users. For most people, using the WinCatalog Standard package will be sufficient.

Another way is to combine related documents into complex hierarchically structured documents stored inside data files corresponding to these structures. In such structured documents, it is much more convenient to navigate and find the information you need due to both structuring and advanced search capabilities within the document. In addition, such structuring allows you to perform external searches and search for documents based on fragments of the text included in them. For example, the Maple package is designed for creating hierarchically structured documents.

WinCatalog Standard

Developer: WinCatalog.com

Distribution size: 1.62 MB

Work under control: Windows 95/98/2000/Me/NT 4.0/XP

Distribution method: http://www.wincatalog.com/ru/download/wincatalogs10ru.exe)

Price: 200 rub.

WinCatalog Standard is an easy-to-use multifunctional cataloger with a clear Russian-language interface (Fig. 1). The package allows you to catalog data from any storage media that can be connected to a computer: floppy disks, hard and network drives, regular CDs and audio disks, Zip disks, etc. With its help, you can sort and organize any folders and files, regardless of their location. You can enter data into the catalog either manually (directly into virtual folders) or by scanning disks (including Zip archives located there) - in this case, for ease of orientation, folders and files extracted from disks are better then sorted into virtual folders, which, thanks to the support drag & drop operations will not take much time.

Rice. 1. WinCatalog Standard interface

General catalog management is easy and convenient. Dividing data into thematic folders greatly simplifies orientation, and the placement of folders and their nested elements can be easily changed by simply dragging and dropping. Advanced search (by name, comment, size and modification date; Fig. 2), supporting Boolean operations and the ability to select a specific folder for search, and also taking into account keywords (they can be prudently added to individual directory elements), allows you to quickly find the desired document , and find duplicates - remove duplicate elements from the collection. Exporting all or part of the documentation catalog to a CVS file makes it possible to process the data in another application (for example, MS Excel), and exporting to an HTML file is convenient for printing the catalog.

Rice. 2. Search documents in WinCatalog Standard

Maple 6.25

Developer: Crystal Office Systems

Distribution size: Maple - 5.3 MB, Maple Professional - 5.89 MB

Work under control: Windows (all versions)

Distribution method: shareware (30-day demo version: Maple - http://www.crystaloffice.com/maple.exe, Maple Professional - http://www.crystaloffice.com/maplepro.exe)

Price: Maple - $21.95, Maple Professional - $30.95

Maple is an easy-to-use document manager that allows you to combine diverse materials into hierarchical structures and ultimately obtain structured documents: business plans, reports, analytical notes, brochures, etc. In such hierarchical document trees, diverse information is presented more clearly, and finding any document is much easier than with standard cataloging. To view documents created in Maple, you need a special viewer, Maple Reader, which can be downloaded for free at: http://www.crystaloffice.com/mreader.exe (2.51 MB). The package has a user-friendly interface (Fig. 3) and is so easy to learn that even the lack of Russian localization of the program will not be an obstacle for most users, and therefore this solution can be recommended to the widest audience.

Rice. 3. Maple program interface

The manager is available in two versions: basic Maple and extended Maple Professional. Among the fundamental differences of the extended version is the presence of such additional functions as document search, grammar checking, file encryption and backup of hierarchical structures.

The basis of any document in Maple is a hierarchical tree of nodes, the level of nesting of subnodes in which, as well as their number, is unlimited. Each node is a separate document containing not only text (typed directly, pasted from the clipboard or imported from documents in RTF, DOC, WRI and HTML formats), but also tabular material, graphs, links to basic fragments of the final document or files, and etc. When preparing documents, it is possible to use a standard set of functions for working with text: changing the font type and size, creating lists, formatting paragraphs, using styles, etc. Integration with MS Word allows you to use the spell checker built into MS Word to check grammar and search for synonyms not only on English, but also in Russian. The built-in backup system provides the ability to create compressed backup copies of hierarchical documents (in ZIP and CAB formats). The built-in encryption wizard helps you encrypt sensitive documents using the Blowfish cryptographic algorithm. And the Finder search module allows you to quickly find the necessary documents by name fragment, author, comments, content (Fig. 4), etc.

Rice. 4. Search documents by content
in them the text in Maple

Quick access to documents

The technology of computer preparation of documents assumes that the created documents are subsequently used repeatedly. For example, when developing a new document, you may need one or two paragraphs from yesterday’s document, or the new document is generally a copy of the old one, but with changed variable information, etc.

Unfortunately, the user cannot always remember the name of an important document created the day before yesterday, and sometimes does not have the slightest idea of where to look for it. Of course, you need to give documents meaningful names and save them, adhering to clear cataloging, but, alas, it happens otherwise, due to haste, distracting calls, etc. As a result, searching for the required document can take a lot of precious time - after all, it is not at all a fact that you will be able to open it through the Windows list of links to the latest documents accessible through the Start menu. The fact is that this list:

limited to 15 documents - this means that the probability of including documents, for example, a week ago is practically zero;
does not allow you to locate a document if you remember part of the text, but forgot the file name;
does not include documents of the same name (but at the same time different) saved under the same name, but in different folders, which is important, for example, when working together on a document with the formation of several of its versions.

There is one more problem - the list of recent documents provided in Windows is one of the channels for leaking confidential data, since any user (including an attacker) can use it to find out about the nature of the owner’s computer activity. Therefore, it is recommended to regularly clean this list, for example, using utilities for removing “junk” data from the disk. As a result, a seemingly paradoxical situation arises: if a user regularly destroys information about recently used documents for security purposes, then he is deprived of quick access to them, and otherwise he risks becoming a victim of attackers. However, there is a way out - you can use the specialized utility ActualDoc, which expands the capabilities of Windows in terms of working with the latest documents.

If the desired document was created a long time ago and therefore cannot appear in the list of recently opened documents (both built into Windows and in the ActualDoc list), then you will have to resort to searching for it. Another problem arises here - as a rule, the user does not remember the name of the document (as well as the date of its creation), but he knows which keywords appear in the text. This means that you need to search for a document by fragments of the text included in it - alas, although this task can be solved using the built-in tools of Windows or, for example, Word, it is very mediocre. And the point is not only that such a search is not entirely obvious and is performed slowly - sometimes you can live with this. What is more important is that not all files will be found - the morphological features of the Russian language will not be taken into account during the search, so files in which the searched words have a different case ending will remain unfound. At the same time, specialized search utilities such as “Snoop” (http://www.isleuthhound.com/ru/), Superior Search (http://superiorsearch.ru/), “Archivarius 3000” and Phoenix Search (http ://indexlab.net/), can quickly find the necessary documents regardless of their location. The most attractive among the mentioned solutions in terms of price/quality ratio seems to us to be the Archivarius 3000 package.

ActualDoc 3.5

Developer: Flexigen Software

Distribution size: Standard - 4.1 MB, Professional - 3.6 MB

Work under control: Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista

Distribution method: Standard - freeware (http://www.flexigensoft.com/files/download/actualdoc-standard.exe), Professional - shareware (14-day demo version - http://www.flexigensoft.com/files/download/ actualdoc.exe)

Price: Standard - free, Professional - $19.95

ActualDoc is a recent document manager that remembers used documents and provides quick and secure access to them. The program is simple and intuitive, has a user-friendly interface with support for the Russian language (Fig. 5) and requires virtually no time to master, especially since it is accompanied by a comprehensive help system, and therefore can become an indispensable tool for both professionals and home users.

Rice. 5. ActualDoc program interface

ActualDoc keeps track of the download of an unlimited number of documents within a user-specified period (60 days by default), supports more than 40 file formats (text and graphic files, MS Office documents and HTML documents, PDF files, etc.) and allows you to quickly download any of them. Finding the required document in the program environment is not a problem. If the scroll of documents she has memorized is relatively small, then you can select the document directly from the list. Otherwise, it would be wiser to first limit the list of possible candidates by filtering it (filtering by time is possible). O interval, by extension and category) or search by document name (in general) or by a fragment of the text included in it (however, searching in Russian text is not always successful). There is another way to quickly open the desired document - through built-in bookmarks (the same as in Internet Explorer; Fig. 6), which can be assigned to individual frequently used documents and significantly speed up access to them, since the need for searching is eliminated. The selected document is available in the built-in viewer - for viewing, searching and copying, as well as in an external application - for editing and can be used for complete processing, selective copying of information from it, or for sending the document by e-mail. At the same time, the list of documents itself can be hidden from prying eyes and protected by a password - in this case, recently used files will not be displayed in the menu Start -> Documents.

Rice. 6. Opening a document via a bookmark
in ActualDoc

The package comes in two versions: the free basic Standard and the paid Professional. The free version does not allow you to view documents in built-in viewers, use the search function (as a result, you can only search for documents visually, viewing the full or filtered list), create custom categories and edit bookmarks.

Archivist 3000 (3.82)

Developer: Likasoft

Distribution size: 3 MB

Work under control: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista

Distribution method: shareware (30-day demo version - http://www.likasoft.com/download/arch3000-ru.exe)

Price: student license - 195 rubles, personal license - 295 rubles, commercial license - 900 rubles.

« Archivist 3000 is the optimal solution for quickly searching documents in 18 different languages (including Russian, English, German and French), aimed at a wide range of users. The program provides instant access to documents located on your hard drive, network and removable drives (CD, DVD, ZIP, etc.), and can work with all popular document types (PDF files, MS Office documents, text files, etc. .). It can search in archives (ZIP, RAR, etc.), in email messages (Outlook, Outlook Express, The Bat!, etc.) and in files attached to them. In addition, searching in the Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino databases and in the ICQ, Odigo IM and Miranda IM message databases is supported.

Along with regular search by keyword or set of keywords, the program supports an advanced search mode using logical functions and can search for documents not only by content, but also by file name, modification date, size, document type, encoding, etc. ( Fig. 7). Thanks to full Unicode support, searches are performed correctly not only in documents in one language, but also in multilingual ones (for example, with text in Russian and German simultaneously). It is possible to remotely search for documents via the Internet with subsequent access to the found documents through any Internet browser, for example, Internet Explorer. Search results can be presented in excerpt mode, when the most significant (relevant) fragments of selected documents are displayed with highlighting of the found words, and in table mode, when brief information about the documents is displayed (Fig. 8), by which they can be sorted.

Rice. 7. Search for documents in the Archivist 3000 environment

Rice. 8. Options for presenting search results
in "Archivarius 3000"

Filling out standard documents

Preparation of standard documents takes up a significant part of the time of those users who, as part of their duties, are involved in the preparation of various documentation in insurance companies, banks, notary offices, companies providing various types of services, etc. As a rule, such documents are created in the Word text editor based on initially developed base documents, in which some variable information is simply replaced. There is nothing complicated about this, but with large volumes of documentation, errors are inevitable - you can, for example, accidentally enter data in the wrong place where it is supposed to be, or erase several words of the document, etc. Therefore, it is desirable that only those fields in which data must be entered are open for input, and all other text is blocked. The developers have provided the ability to create such documents in Word. It is enough to develop a series of templates for all standard documents used in the organization, for each template to prohibit changing permanent data (command Tools -> Set protection -> Prohibit any changes except entering data into form fields) and train users to create documents using templates. For standard documents, where there is relatively little variable information, such templates will be quite sufficient to significantly speed up the process of preparing documents and reduce the risk of errors.

However, in practice, many standard documents are used in which variable information takes up up to half the volume, and some of the variable data is repeated several times in one form or another (Fig. 9) - for example, full name. in different cases, words for entered dates or amounts, etc. In this case, using Word templates does not help much, since filling out documents even using templates will take a lot of time, because all variable data will have to be entered manually.

Rice. 9. Example of a document with a large volume
variable information

There is one more feature of the preparation of standard documents - often it is necessary to prepare not one document, but several at once (for example, to draw up a bank agreement on opening a depositary, three or four types of agreements are needed for signature). Thus, the same information has to be entered into different documents, which also takes a lot of time, and the likelihood of making an error increases accordingly. You can prepare such documents much faster using specialized applications designed to automate the process of preparing standard documents, such as AutoDoc or Blitz Document. These applications are also based on the use of templates, which, unlike ordinary Word templates, not only allow you to enter data into the fields provided for this (for which the user needs to fill out a set of forms with data), but are also able to transform the entered data in a programmed way, for example can replace numbers in words, declension of words and phrases according to grammatical cases, etc. As a result, the necessary documents are filled out quickly, and the number of errors that can be made is an order of magnitude less than when preparing them traditionally in Word. In addition, creating standard documents through specialized solutions is also attractive because all created documents are automatically cataloged and finding any of them in the future is not a problem, and the user is not required to know the intricacies of document preparation, because all legal nuances are already taken into account in the templates.

AutoDoc 1.2

Developer: EleWise

Distribution size: 6 MB

Work under control: Windows 2000/XP/2003

Distribution method: shareware (functionally limited demo version - http://www.auto-doc.ru/download/autodoc/AutoDoc_Demo.exe)

Price:"AvtoDoc-Personal" - 1980 rubles, "AvtoDoc-Server" - 2980 rubles, "AvtoDoc-Client" - 1490 rubles.

"AutoDoc" is a program that allows you to automate and speed up the process of filling out standard documents using templates created using MS Word and maintaining an archive of documents and records made using these templates. The process of generating new documents in it is extremely automated - just select the desired business scenario from the general list of scenarios (a business scenario is a customized template) and fill out the input form with the required data (Fig. 10). The created document can be viewed, saved, printed, or opened in Word for further editing.

Rice. 10. Creating a document using the “AutoDoc” script

The number of built-in scripts is small (Fig. 11), but can be expanded with custom scripts, the creation process of which is presented in detail and clearly in the help and is fully controlled by the wizard, and therefore is accessible to most users. Developing a new script involves performing five steps: entering the name of the script, creating a template, defining variables, setting up and testing the script and saving it for further editing (Fig. 12). At first glance, preparing a template may cause some difficulties, since it must be created manually in Word, and this requires knowledge of a scripting language. But in practice, everything is much simpler - it is enough to understand that variables are entered in curly braces, and the $ sign is placed in front of them; all other text is printed in the usual way (Fig. 13). New templates can be created not only from scratch, but also based on existing templates or ready-made documents - in the first case, you just need to change the script settings and test it with the changed settings, and in the second, open a ready-made document, replace changing information with variables and specify it program as a template. Variables can be of several types, including those that allow:

enter data into several fields at once: full name, passport data, organization details, etc.;
select a variable value from a set of values;
perform various operations and transformations: calculate the percentage of a number or VAT of an amount, convert a number into a string, enter the current date, etc.;
indicate a word or phrase in a certain case, etc.

Documents created according to AutoDoc business scenarios are saved in the form of clearly structured records, and therefore at any time you can find the desired document by filtering or searching, view it, print it, regenerate or delete it.

Rice. 11. “AutoDoc” window with a list of built-in groups
business scenarios

Rice. 12. Development of a new script in AutoDoc

Rice. 13. Example of template text in “AutoDoc”,
in which four variables appear: “number”,
“month”, “organization” and “full name”

The program is supplied in two versions: single-user - "AvtoDoc-Personal" and multi-user (network), represented by two modules - "AvtoDoc-Server" and "AvtoDoc-Client". In the single-user version, all components of the system are located on the local computer, and in the multi-user version, the database of scripts, templates and records is installed on the server, and on user computers only the client part is installed, which allows the use of all AutoDoc materials stored on the server.

Blitz Document 3.4.1

Developer: BlitzSoft

Distribution size: 991 KB

Work under control: Windows NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista

Distribution method: shareware (functionally limited demo version - http://blitz-doc.ru/insblitz.exe)

Price: 500 rub.

Blitz Document is a compact program for automatically creating standard documents using script templates. It allows you to quickly generate documents based on built-in templates, the number of which is more than 30 (Fig. 14), or custom scripts that can be developed based on built-in templates or empty layouts. Creating a document using a ready-made script is extremely simple - just select the type of script and follow the instructions of the wizard, who will conscientiously guide the user through all stages of document preparation (Fig. 15). The finished document can be viewed, printed, edited in the built-in text editor (both variable and constant data can be corrected) or opened for editing in Word.

Rice. 14. List of built-in Blitz Document scripts

Rice. 15. Creating a scripted document
Blitz Document

The development of created templates is somewhat more complicated, but will also be within the capabilities of most users. True, mastering this feature will take some time, since, unfortunately, the reference information included with the program is designed for sufficiently trained users (it is very sparse and does not contain any illustrations or examples). Technically, creating a new template consists of two stages: selecting a built-in template or layout on the basis of which a new template will be developed, and sequential adjustment of the constant and variable data included in it (Fig. 16). Constant data is entered in its real form, but not directly into the text, but through dialog boxes. Variable information is also adjusted during the dialogue and is no longer entered directly, but is replaced by variables with wildcard labels, designed taking into account the script description language used in the program. Scripts can not only display the text entered during document generation, but also change it using a system of data substitution or transformation commands. For example, it is provided:

Rice. 16. Development of a new template based on the layout
in Blitz Document

Declension of words and phrases according to grammatical cases;
converting numbers to strings;
converting calendar dates into strings;
carrying out any calculations used in legal and business documents;
changing the text depending on the value of the entered data, etc.

Documents created using Blitz Document are saved in structured journals - this allows you to quickly navigate through the documentation and almost instantly gain access to the necessary materials, for example, in order to print them. In addition, documents can be grouped into virtual files, which is convenient for quick access to materials related to a specific subject or object appearing in the database.

OCR text in scanned documents

Users who often have to convert paper documents (pages of a book, newspaper, magazine or fax) into an electronic editable format cannot do without a character recognition system, or OCR (Optical Character Recognition) system, designed to automatically enter text from paper documents into a computer. Theoretically, you can use the FineReader program from ABBYY or CuneiForm from Cognitive Technologies - both are reliable in operation and have high recognition accuracy. But the FineReader package has a simplified and affordable version for home users, ABBYY FineReader 8.0 Home Edition, which makes it more attractive to a wider audience.

ABBYY FineReader 8.0

Developer: ABBYY Software

Distribution size: 40.5 MB

Work under control: Windows 98/Me/NT 4.0/2000/XP

Distribution method: shareware (there is no demo version of FineReader Home Edition, a functionally limited demo version of FineReader Professional Edition - http://www.abbyy.ru/download/?param=45793)

Price: FineReader Home Edition - 990 RUR, FineReader Professional Edition - 3750 RUR.

ABBYY FineReader is an ideal solution for recognizing documents in which not only the text, but also the design is recognized, which ensures accurate transmission of tables, pictures and text division into columns (Fig. 17). The program is easy to use, can recognize multilingual (179 languages are supported) and multi-page documents. It is possible to recognize the entire document or its individual pages. The result can be saved in one of the common formats: RTF, DOC, XLS, HTML, TXT or PDF. It is possible to save recognition results step by step to eliminate errors. Export of recognition results directly to Microsoft Word, Excel, Lotus Word Pro, Corel WordPerect and Adobe Acrobat has been implemented. The built-in spell checker (for 36 languages) will help speed up checking the result, and integration with Microsoft Word allows you to call the program directly from Word, without being distracted from working with the text.

Rice. 17. Result of document recognition
in ABBYY FineReader Home Edition

The program is presented in two versions: FineReader Home Edition, designed for beginners, and FineReader Professional Edition, aimed at professionals. The professional version allows you to manage recognition parameters (change the mode, perform recognition with training) and has a richer set of recognition functions (recognition of PDF files, texts captured with a digital camera, etc.). In addition, the Professional Edition provides more different saving formats, added the ability to recognize barcodes and quickly recognize screenshots using the Screenshot Reader utility.

Converting documents from PDF format

All technical documentation is supplied today in PDF format, in which the free Adobe Acrobat Reader utility is used to view documents. But quite often there is a need to use fragments of PDF files when preparing your own documents or editing materials in PDF format (for example, an article, a contract, a report, etc.). In the first case, you will need to extract fragments of text and/or images from PDF files (theoretically, this can be done using the built-in tools of Acrobat Reader, but with very mediocre results). In the second case, you will have to convert PDF documents into an editable format (for example, into Word format) while maintaining the design of the original document, which is not even provided for in Acrobat Reader. In such cases, special utilities will come to the rescue, of which the most attractive packages are ABBYY PDF Transformer and PDF2Word (http://www.toppdf.com/pdf2word/index.html). We will look at the first of them - although it is more expensive, it has a Russian-language interface and allows you to convert PDF files into several editable formats, and can correctly recognize not only English, but also Russian text.

ABBYY PDF Transformer 2.0

Developer: ABBYY Software

Distribution size: 52 MB

Work under control: Windows 2000 (SP2 or higher)/XP/Server 2003

Distribution method: shareware (15-day demo version - http://www.abbyy.ru/pdftransformer/?param=35957)

Price: 1490 rub.

ABBYY PDF Transformer is a utility for converting PDF documents into Microsoft Word document formats (Fig. 18), Excel, as well as HTML and TXT files. The package has an intuitive interface and is very easy to use, so even novice users will be able to master it.

ABBYY PDF Transformer can convert any PDF files, including files without a text layer (such files are most often obtained from scanned documents and represent an image of text), and correctly processes PDF files containing any combination of supported languages (including Russian and English). The utility accurately preserves the design of the source document (pictures, tables, column layout, links) and allows you to manage conversion and saving options. For example, you can clearly define areas that should be perceived by the program as text or as an image (which is important for PDF files with complex design), save the finished document with the same design as in the original, or as a column of text (with or without pictures - optional) etc. If necessary, it is possible to selectively convert individual pages or even their fragments. In addition, ABBYY PDF Transformer can also perform reverse conversion, allowing you to create PDF files from Microsoft Word documents, Excel tables, PowerPoint presentations, Visio diagrams and HTML files, as well as from almost any application that supports printing a document (this is implemented via virtual printer PDF-XChange for ABBYY PDF Transformer 2.0).

Evernote has won the hearts of many who like to organize a variety of information. Since then, their own “Evernote” has appeared for narrower tasks - like organizing music, videos, clothes, etc. And, of course, there are programs for organizing files on a computer.

TagSpaces is a cross-platform program for organizing files on your devices.

Advantages:

Work offline;
Supports Windows, Mac, Linux and Android;
Can be deployed on your server;
Does not require installation;
OpenSource

Flaws:

No iOS version (official);
Difficult to understand the interface;
Features on the free plan are limited

Like most open source programs, TagSpaces is available for all popular platforms and does not require installation on a desktop. On Windows, you just need to download the archive (70 MB in total) with the program and unpack it into the desired directory. This is great if you don't like the cloud, but want to have the information you need at your fingertips. You put it on a flash drive or in a shared folder and work in isolation from the rest of the world.

After launching the program, you just need to accept the license agreement and you can get started right away. No registrations, passwords or anything else for you. Just a short tour of the program itself.

The main purpose of the program is to organize files on your PC. The files themselves are not affected in any way, and the program works completely offline. TagSpaces is more of an addition to the standard Explorer than a program for organizing information.

Therefore, to get started, you need to select the Directories that you want to organize. These can be any folders on your computer. You can specify a directory name different from the name of the folder itself, and also configure its display parameters (list, table, gallery) and select a default directory.

Organization of information

You can add folders to one another, and also quickly navigate to a folder, but in standard Explorer.

Information display modes

Depending on the contents of the folder, its display changes. For some reason, the default folder settings are reset and all folders display the last selected options.

Unlike regular Explorer, there are not many options for working with files. You can create a text file (with Markdown support), add folders, and that's basically it.

Why do you need to install TagSpaces?

The whole “trick” is the ability to add tags to files or folders. You can easily add the necessary tags to financial documents, photos, music or any other files. When you select such a tag, the necessary information will be displayed and you will no longer have to run through different folders in search.

The tags themselves are registered in the file properties, which allows you to work with them even without the program installed.

The developers themselves claim that the program can also be used as an alternative to Evernote. Which I have a hard time believing.

When you create a note, a copy of it is saved as a file in the selected directory. Text, Markdown and HTML formats are supported. There's also a web clipper for Chrome that can save pages directly to your devices.
The program also supports various extensions, which are mainly aimed at supporting the opening of various formats.

TagSpaces is an open source program, but not free. According to the developers, the free plan will be enough for most users. But its limitations were not enough for me even to review. The pro version will cost €39.

Is it worth taking?

My opinion is no. During my time working with the program, I never saw any practical benefit from this method of organizing information. Inside the interface, organizing by tags seems convenient, allowing you to quickly navigate and find the information you need.

In practice, navigation even within the program itself is very inconvenient. To move between directories you have to make a few extra clicks. Tags are on a separate tab and when viewing files they are not even immediately visible.

To add information, you also have to perform dozens of unnecessary actions. As a result, the work only causes irritation, and not a quick and convenient search for files. But to work with files, you still have to switch to standard Explorer.