scanning app / organization

[dftr]

I don't know if this is the best forum for this topic, but I've written in many different books and journals.  

I want to organize things better, and ideally my plan is to scan things in. 

 

Text conversion would be great but I don't how well it works w/ FPs and handwriting, particularly italic or cursive.  

 

My plan would be to keep everything in my Notability app...  Any suggestions or tips?

I know you can scan pdfs w/ notes for free; but I'm willing to buy an app or subscription if it's better.  

I tried writing in Notability w/ apple pencil btw, and it's efficient but doesn't replace the feel of a fountain pen on paper...

[A Smug Dill]

25 minutes ago, dftr said:

I want to organize things better,

 

… but what does that entail; and what are your priorities?

 

1. Organising the artefacts of your writing better at least cost (financially and/or in effort)
   They're already in contained in physical volumes (i.e. books and journals), so just organise the volumes in some sort of logical manner, label them with ‘metadata’ to make it easier to locate stuff without having to browse through the pages each time, and/or create indices within each volume, and also for each logically higher-level container (e.g. bookcase, cabinet, drawer, archive box).
   Essentially free of financial expense, other than materials and consumables such as boxes and self-adhesive labels.
2. Making the content accessible in the future without retrieving the physical artefacts
   Just scan or photograph the pages as images, then upload the digital files to cloud storage and/or keep a local copy on your computing device. Ready accessibility, and reduction of risk of loss of the content, is part and parcel of the format and location you choose. You can name the digital files meaningfully, and perhaps add metadata to each volume, to make finding content easier. The form and nuance of your handwriting are preserved, along with anything that is closer to drawings and diagrams than written text. Just don't expect to be able to search by and find specific content, e.g. particular phrases or names.
   Essentially free of financial expense, other than paying for data storage media and/or service to give the level of data redundancy you want.
3. Only keeping the content, maximising accessibility but minimising the physical storage space required
   You'll probably have to enlist someone's help (in exchange for payment, or otherwise) to transcribe all the (written) contents into digital files, then discard the physical books and journals as they have no more practical value except as a space-inefficient redundant copy. (There, I'm deliberately ignoring the sentimental value they might hold, and how the physical objects can trigger certain memories and feelings not otherwise extractable from the user.) The content of the digital files will lend itself for searching using keywords, etc.; but form and nuance in your handwriting will be lost.
   I'm sure there are companies that provide such services professionally; but you can probably easily outsource the work to strangers a bit more cheaply on websites such as Fiver or Airtasker. They won't assign any (practical or emotional) importance to the content without your specific direction, however; so you'll probably still have to go over the returned ‘text’ files yourself if you want to categorise them, attach meaningful metadata, etc.
4. ‘Best of all worlds’, keeping everything including the physical artefacts as well as the form and nuance, but making content (in the original appearance) accessible everywhere, protected by data redundancy, as well as searchable
   Enlist someone's help in scanning, photographing or otherwise digitising each page as one or more images however you want it (for example, colour-corrected, or photographed to capture sheen from the ink marks where possible), and transcribe the contents and embed the text into the digital files, such that they are searchable but the results can then be presented to you as images of the original form.
   The most costly approach, since you want to add (a lot) to what you have on hand without losing anything in the process.

So what are your priorities in the exercise?

[dftr]

Thank you for the thoughtful reply.  To give you an example, I found in one of my journals, my review/thoughts on Dune the book, in another my review on the David Lynch book, and later in that journal a comparison between Dune/LoTR/Starwars.  Now, I want to put an entry on the 2021 Dune.  

 

What I would like to be able to do is type "Dune" and pull up scans of all these articles/thoughts.

 

I understand the most efficient way would be to type everything into word files but I don't enjoy that sort of medium.  I also plan to keep the original books/journals mainly to see the physical forms.  I didn't always use the best paper so there is some feathering in the early journals but it's still readable.   I must also say, some of my entries and writing is shockingly trite/embarassing... I don't want to scan those entries but I feel I should keep them to remind humility.  Who knows, maybe in 20 years ago, those silly trite ideas will be fashionable.

 

So I think I'm with #2 or #4.  I don't mind buying a scanner if it is worth it.  I get the impression iphones are almost as good at this point.  FWIW, I'm now using loose leaf paper and kokuyo binders so I can move things around.  I have a index/list of topics but leave out page numbers b/c that can change...

 

BTW, if anyone has a good system or idea I'm up for learning/using things going forward.

 

[Mike B]

I think A Smug Dill has given you the basic four options, and it is going to be up to you to decide just how far you want to go with the organizing.

 

Until AI improves significantly, people will have to accept that doing the sort of cross-referencing you are interested in means they are going to have to individually go back over their original writings and documentation, and then set up a system where they can set down, in a planned way and in properly-designated locations, the references/things they are most interested in. To use your example, for now you would have to go through your notes, have a separate spot/place where you will actively record the locations of David Lynch, Dune, and Star Wars/LoTR mentions, and then be confident your new spot has a way for you to find it and couple it to other related notes you may already have, or will have in future.

 

Using a good scanning system and OCR software, you could probably get most of your handwritten references put into an rtf or wrd file, and then do global searches to create those initial cross-references. The analog scanning itself won't be of much help without the conversion to a digital character-based format. And bear in mind that it is what you do next -- coming up with a reference system for the results of those searches -- that will make the effort either a success or a failure.

 

I am currently doing some slightly detailed studying of something called the Zettelkasten system (I know, but I got bored). Lots of books and free internet articles about the process exist. Essentially you need to create an index card sort of reference work for you that is separate from your initial work and extremely focused on being an excellent summary of the individual points, and then -- most important -- come up with a reference system for the notes that will permit you to go look for similar-but-not-identical ideas and concepts. It's this ability to cross-reference without having to reread everything that makes or breaks the system.

 

A slightly scholarly book on the subject is How To Take Smart Notes by Sonke Ahrens (Amazon, Apple Store or Kobo). She goes into a lot of detail. As I mentioned, the index file system is a summary of your initial work in collecting things, and is separate from them. The websites mention Devonthink (for Apple systems) and Obsidian or Notability for Windows as good programs for creating the index files. As a separate system for keeping track of your "source" documents, the most-suggested program is Zotero. Both Obsidian and Zotero are free for individual use.

 

But it is going to be the alphanumeric file reference system you then create for your index cards which is going to permit you to figure out which index cards might have some relationship to the topic you are interested in or are presently thinking about. So that is where you should probably be sure you are making the right initial decisions.

 

Hope this helps!

[Mike B]

One other thing, if I may.

 

If you do a search you can find free OCR programs that seem to work pretty well. Just upload your photo (from phone or iPad) or -- better -- use your computer, and what you get back should be pretty accurate...

[A Smug Dill]

1 hour ago, Mike B said:

If you do a search you can find free OCR programs that seem to work pretty well.

 

On 10/27/2021 at 2:25 PM, dftr said:

Text conversion would be great but I don't how well it works w/ FPs and handwriting, particularly italic or cursive.

 

I do wonder about this!

 

 

[Mike B]

This is the Google Docs version of the Latin copy of the Lord's Prayer from your posting. I translated it into a.pdf and then uploaded it to Google.

 

Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur Nomen Iuum; .. adveniat Regnum Tuum; fiat voluntas Tua, sicut in caelo, et in terra. Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie; et. dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris; et ne nos inducas in tentationem; sed libera nos a Malo. Amen... . . . . . . . . . .

 

That isn't too bad for a free program that makes the assumption the wording is in English.

[dftr]

Thanks Mike;  The Zettelkasten method is truly interesting.  Many people seem to use Obsidian for this and I'll have to make sure I can create notes from PDF/scans. 

 

Re OCR, I've had bad luck using trials of Adobe, Camscanner, Swiftscan.  It seems my cursive doesn't get recognized.

I think it'll be better to scan and then put tags/titles using text.  

 

BTW,  this Sonke Ahrens seems to be a guy.  I saw a video interview about him on youtube.  I like his book so far; the process of thinking/writing rings true especially why I like writing by hand.  But I need to reinforce connections and organization of these ideas and it's more efficient to do this electronically.  I saw another video w/ a pastor who did this all with cards and while I like the tactile feel of going through all the cards, it's not something useful to me vs. a digital solution that I can do at work and not have to worry about cards getting misplaced or damaged.  

[Mike B]

Thank you in return! If I ever have occasion to write to Sonke Ahrens, I will make certain the envelope is addressed to Mr. instead of Ms.

 

I can sympathize to some extent with your difficulties with OCR. I used to have sort of a scratchy hand and the OCR systems had a difficult time with it. Either they have suddenly improved a lot in the past three or four years, or I am finally learning to use a more predictable style of handwriting. I use Nebo on my iPad and its translation is very nearly 100% accurate; perhaps that is training me to write better?

 

I think you are right in doing some serious thinking about tags and titles -- they are what seem to make the different filing and retrieval systems function.

 

I've now finished Ahrens' book, and I am glad to have read it. Possibly this is because he made some observations about other organizational systems which agree with my views, allowing for confirmation bias.

 

When I was working, I found that David Allen's GTD system was particularly appropriate to keeping track of just about anything I was charged with. I believe this was partly because the time management tools Allen recommended are among the best available and are simple to use. But more importantly, it was his insistence on viewing anything requiring more than one additional item to complete as a project, and then coming up with a simplified way of dealing with these matters, that made the system nearly perfect for business. I have worked for a company that had no idea what a project was (everything there was a process), and another that persisted in believing that every project needed to be set up with an absolute formality with lots of analysis, designation of sponsors, and formalized issue management records. Most businesses require neither extreme, and Allen's techniques allowed for simplified techniques more than adequate for the great majority of the work.

 

All of this to say that while I am going to be adopting a summary note approach and adding Obsidian as the "slip-box" or index card notes for my work flow, I believe that OneNote is perfectly good for longer literary notes and reference storage. At my advanced age and decrepitude it doesn't seem to make sense to make an entire change, and the full-blown implementation of the zettelkasten system seems in any event more adapted to the soft or social sciences research work for a younger person, where much emphasis is placed upon formal reference and footnotes.

 

For slightly more complex planning work I am thinking I can keep on with a mind mapping approach (I use MindManager).

 

I'd be interested in reading about what you finally decide to do with your old notes.

[dftr]

When I used GTD, to me the most valuable aspect was doing a weekly review.  

 

I am half way through Mr Ahren's book but I realize my goals are similar but also a bit different in that publishing/producing something tangible isn't a focal point.  I want to think better and use my fountain pens. 

 

Your comment about age brought up two points.  First I tried to share this system/idea w/ my kids who are in college and I was chagrinned to hear them say they were set in their ways... The second was that I remember reading (and writing in my journal) a quote from Gandhi?  to the effect "Treat other people as though this would be your last day on Earth, but learn as though you would live a 1000 years."  And this is where I realize if I'd been using this system, I could have pulled up the quote and correct author and maybe found some other interesting trains of thought...

 

But yes, if I come across new software or solution, I'll post about it here!

Thanks again for your suggestions.

 

[amberleadavis]

I'm following this thread to learn more.

[dftr]

Well. Ill share my workflow if it helps and if people want to share what they do id love to copy some ideas. I use fountain pens to capture all the temporary notes.  I enjoy obsidian and didnt feel roam was better for my purposes. Its robust and free and portable.  Theres no special codes or updates that could make your notes lost to obsolete technology (unless people advance beyond reading).  
 

I scan w my ipad and add it to each note. I tried most ocr apps in trial basis and concluded that the best only get 70% right so its less time to transcribe by hand. This transcription though is key if you want in later years find links and associations.  
 

Always refining; just added a field for pen & ink to the notes.  
This is the kind of thing I wished to have started years ago, but Im happy to do it now.  I will add screenshots later to give an idea.  
 

please bear in mind the scanning abd handwriting practice is not necessary but for my enjoyment. I do feel the visual handwriting helps w recall. 
 

[Mike B]

With an iPad (if it is modern enough)...

 

I have a mini-iPad (Generation 5 and the first generation iPencil) and use Nebo for notes when I am not using a real pen and paper.

 

The OCR with this app is remarkably good for me.