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Topic : Writing many entries/articles, storing them, and browsing them I'm looking for software that will permit me to write articles of various sizes, with a title and tags for each article. The program - selfpublishingguru.com

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I'm looking for software that will permit me to write articles of various sizes, with a title and tags for each article. The program should store the content, and then allow me to browse (whether from a list, or from a table).

Article will have equations, tables, graphics, and things like that; but if these options are not available, I would be okay with text-only.

I'm a student, and I often have to write my own reviews about some concepts and notions. Let's take enthalpy for example: I would like to write a small article about enthalpy where I would summarize the info I need about it, then store the texty and mark it with tags so I can find it easily afterwards. Let's say that afterwards I wanted to write a small article about crystal solubility, I would like to do the same thing I needed for the enthalpy article, and store it.

In the end, I want to be capable of browsing my articles' titles, one by one, displaying the content if I want to; or searching by either tags or content or title. It could be similar to a blogging system, but for personal use.


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When looking for tools like these, future-compatibility is a very big issue. First off, try to avoid any tools that have their own proprietary format and can't be edited using any other tool (look what happened to many 80s document files which were written using their own editors and the editors suddenly just vanished). Microsoft Office is also one such example which can not be relied upon. Their format might change 10 years from now, making your documents incomprehensible.

With this consideration in mind, I started storing my content in plain text files with markdown formatting. But then I met Zim Wiki.

This is a personal wiki for managing information which stores its data in plain files. It uses its own syntax but the syntax is very reasonable and quite close to markdown. I keep various notebooks inside it -- one for my research notes, one for general notes, one for my diary entries etc. It indexes all of the text and you can easily search across all your notebook. The good part in it is that you don't have to raise your hand above keyboard for any task. There are shortcuts for all sorts of things. You can easily search or go to any page without touching your mouse.

It supports adding Latex equations, code syntax highlighting, diagrams etc.

I would consider it to be equivalent to Evernote, albeit it has no Android client and all the data resides in your hard-disk in pure future-proof text files.

Furthermore, though it is quite old and mature now, the development is still active.


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I would also suggest that Scrivener is worth a look. It has a good keyword and tagging system, including custom metadata. It also has a flexible search system. I have moved most of my writing from Word into Scrivener over the last year, because of the type of organization (and reorganization) it allows. The downside to Scrivener, in my view, is that while it is certainly capable as a "word processor," there are things that can be done in Word that Scrivener is simply incapable of, such as the in-text Track Changes functions that Word offers, and macros. Scrivener's UI also leaves something to be desired, especially if you are more of a keyboard than a mouse person. Its dictionary/spell check/auto-correct features are also lacking. Despite all that, it's become my writing environment of choice.

Another suggestion -- and this might seem to be an odd one -- is that you consider using WordPress, which also gives you keywords, tagging, and similar, with automatic timestamping of each "entry" or "post."

It is possible to install a fully functional WordPress on your local computer, so that when you "publish" an item/post (i.e., enter it into your database) it is not publicly published, but is only available to you, on your computer. You can get a locally installable version of WordPress at bitnami.com/stack/wordpress. I am using WordPress like that as a personal database.

I would, and personally do, avoid using Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Etc. As a system for creating, organizing, accessing, and even sharing your work, Google's system is (perhaps) better in theory than practice.


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Google Drive / Google Docs

Google Drive and Google Docs work together perfectly for what you are looking for.
If you sign up for a Google account you get 15GB of free storage and you can use Drive just like a File Explorer.

15 GB of Space - Free

Next, you just create your Google documents, write up your articles and then later when you want to find all of your articles that have the word enthalpy in them, you go to google drive, type in the search term and it finds all your documents that have that word in them.

Access From Anywhere

The added benefit, of course, is that you can get to your documents from any Internet-connected device that runs a web browser.
It's very cool. I use it and highly recommend it.
It's a fantastic research tool, because it is convenient and only a web browser away.
I use it on my work computer, home laptop and Nexus 7 (7 inch Android pad).


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Sounds like Scrivener might work nicely for you. You write your pieces in text, you can add graphics, you can view your pieces either in a list or as graphics which you can tag, and you can organize your individual pieces in folders.

You can download a fully-operational demo and use it for 30 days. Search for Scrivener on this site to see other discussions of it (often from me :) ).


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