PDF books and catalogs in windows 7 - 10

[Tecnician]

Hi People,
I need some advice. Because everything is turning into digital I have to adapt me too. As Technician I have to read very often manuals, blueprints, codebooks and catalogs in PDF format, but it is always complicated. I love paper because I can put a sticky note on the most important pages in books and I can mark sentences important to me and I can quickly find information on a blueprint. How do you guys do it with PDF files (books often have 600+ pages) , because I think I am not the only one with this problem? What software do you use for Win 7 or 10 and how do you organize your stuff?

Thanks,

[Aesys]

I have used the annotation and highlight functions in the reader of my choice, such as acrobat.

Most readers do it, but linky below to Acrobat.
https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/usin...ting-pdfs.html

[Nathan Brazil]

Originally Posted by Tecnician

Hi People,
I need some advice. Because everything is turning into digital I have to adapt me too. As Technician I have to read very often manuals, blueprints, codebooks and catalogs in PDF format, but it is always complicated. I love paper because I can put a sticky note on the most important pages in books and I can mark sentences important to me and I can quickly find information on a blueprint. How do you guys do it with PDF files (books often have 600+ pages) , because I think I am not the only one with this problem? What software do you use for Win 7 or 10 and how do you organize your stuff?

Thanks,

I think I have a solution...

[Nathan Brazil]

Yea I am a noob, but I have been doing something with Windows 10 and seems to work so far without as difficulties.

I have have been collecting and reading PDF format gaming books for 20+ years. I have a good and seemless (so far) system for Windows 10. There are some standards in setting it up. I am programmer so I know understand how the process works behind the scenes, but modifying an OS is not my forte.

You only need a few things
1.NFTS formatted drive.
2.One free open source driver. Maybe an open source utility if you feel just a bit adventurous
3.Any PDF software that allows you to add/modify the Description and/or the Custom properties of the PDF.

Still here? Good. OK First the software.
The necessary driver is something called PDF Property Extension found here:
https://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/pdfpropertyextension

What it does: When Windows 10 looks at a file, there are properties Microsoft stores in its directory when the file is created and some read off the metadata from inside the the file itself. But only from certain file formats. This a COM driver that provides the function to read the inside of the PDF. It is not prefect as it DOES NOT REPORT EVERY PROPEERTY, but anything more than file sizes is so much more useful.

[Nathan Brazil]

You use any old PDF metadata writer and change the Properties For this :



and this



in Adobe to appear as this in Windows File Explorer

[Nathan Brazil]

Limitations:

1.You can only display the properties which appear in PDF Description and Custom (ISBN and Product No. though of value to me, do not appear for example). The writer of the program did not write a more robust program.
2.Changing "displayed" values as a best practice should be done within your PDF Metadata Tool. Changing them via Windows Explorer will lead cause problems (see next)
3.The reason Microsoft did not implement is because extra metadata is not retained if you copy a PDF to a FAT32 formatted drive. While you might have modified the reference, FAT32 doeesnt do that. This is not horrible BECAUSE IF THE PROPERTIES are IN the PDF, they stay in the PDF if you copy the file back later to an NTFS drive.