Incorporating PDFs

[RobM]

I wonder if it might be possible to be able to incorporate PDF's into Accordance. What I mean is, would it be possible to open a PDF in Accordance as a zone in a workspace? For example, Bookends allows you to attach PDFs to bibliographic entries and then it gives you a window in which to view them. I know for my workflow this would be incredibly useful. Right now I'm doing some work where I'm typing in my User Tool but I have to keep switching among 2-4 PDFs as well as Accordance modules a couple times every few minutes. It would be a lot easier to simply have these PDFs viewable within my Accordance Workspace as a zone.

 

I personally wouldn't even need the PDFs to be searchable. Just being able to view them within Accordance would be awesome. It would create a much neater, organized, and centralized workflow.

 

Is this a reasonable request? Would others benefit from something like this?

[Helen Brown]

I think that even just displaying PDF's is beyong the scope of Accordance.

[Rick]

While I can see how this could be useful, I tend to agree with Helen. I'm not sure it fits within Accordance's purpose.

 

That being said, there has got to be a way to convert a PDF into an Accordance module. I haven't looked, but my guess is that you could find a PDF to Text converter, and then import that text as a module into Accordance.

 

I used to do something similar with class notes. Some of my professors gave lectures which I viewed as fantastic resources for later on down the road. I haven't done it in awhile, so I don't remember the steps, but to this day, I still have those class notes saved as modules. Good luck!

[Tony Lawrence]

 

That being said, there has got to be a way to convert a PDF into an Accordance module.

 

There is, you can save PDF files in HTML format with Acrobat Professional. The problem for me is the limitation of size on user tools. There are a number of older works that are available in the public domain that I wish I could add to my user tools, but I have to break them into parts to import them. I hope that importing larger documents will be a part of the user tool update. Sure I can read them in Preview or Acrobat but I love putting them side by side in my Accordance window.

 

Tony Lawrence