Besides collecting references, another essential part of doing research is taking notes. You can use a word processor to take notes, but they will be scattered around in your computer and hard to find. You can also use one of the notes taking programs, but there is no easy way to link references to a note, and most of them only have bare bone word processing features. Biblioscape provides a unique notes taking program that is integrated with the Reference module. Biblioscape's Notes module help you organize and categorize all your notes. All notes text are indexed. The full text search engine is very fast even with a very large database.
Biblioscape Notes module can also be used to organize captured Web pages. Under the Internet module, you can capture a Web pages onto your local hard drive. The Web page content is indexed for full-text search. Clicking on the note will display the captured Web page along with graphics on the built-in browser.
In notes module, Biblioscape supports the use of bookmarks and hyperlinks. This allows you to make selected text clickable and take you to a web site, a bookmark in the same note, a file, another record in the same database, etc.
To create a bookmark, select the text and go to menu command "Insert | Bookmark...". The selected text will be used as bookmark name, you can type other names if you want. Click the OK button to create a bookmark. Bookmark text will be marked with green underline.
To edit or delete an existing bookmark, select the text marked as bookmark and go to menu command "Insert | Bookmark". The existing bookmark name will be shown. You can type another name and click the OK button to rename it, or press the backspace key to erase the name to delete the bookmark.
To add a hyperlink, select the text and go to menu command "Insert | Hyperlink...". The add hyperlink window will be shown. You can link to the following destination:
When creating a hyperlink to reference, note, task, chart, category, or folder, you have to option to create a record to record link as well. Click the "Link to Record" button and add a record to record link by clicking the "Add Links" button. If you just want to create a hyperlink, please click the "Add Hyperlink" button.
After hyperlink is created, the text will be shown with a blue underline. Double click the hyperlink will take you to the item linked. If it is linked to an WWW address, the web page will be opened in your default browser. When linked to a file, the file will be opened if there is an associated application with that file type. When linked to a bookmark, user can double click the hyperlink text and the cursor will jump the the linked bookmark. When linked to a reference, note, task, charts, category, or folder, the linked record will be opened in a separate window.
To edit or delete a hyperlink, select the text and go to menu command "Insert | Hyperlink...". Change the hyperlink address to edit it. If you make the address blank and click the OK button, the hyperlink will be deleted.
After collecting many notes, you may want to use them when start writing your thesis or paper. Most likely, you will use a word processor like Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect to write. In Biblioscape notes module, select the note or notes you want to add to Word and go to menu command "Edit | Copy Notes" to copy it to the clipboard, or "Edit | Shoot Notes" to insert it directly at the cursor position in Word or WordPerfect document. The note title will be inserted in its own line followed by the content of the note. If more than one note are selected, all notes title and content will be inserted in the order displayed in Biblioscape. If there are linked references to the note you selected, the linked references will be added after the note in the form of temporary citation. If there is a page number in the link description between note and reference, it will be inserted in the temporary citation as well. For example: [Smith, K. 1998 @33-34 #892].
When you shoot or copy notes, the notes content will use whatever font you used in your notes. The notes title and the temp citation of linked references will use the font specified as the default font for notes in the "Tools | Options" window "Others" tab. If you have records in double byte languages like CJK, please make sure a font like Tahoma is selected as the default font for notes in the "Others" tab of "Tools | Options" window.
If you needs to enter notes without interruption during a brainstorm session, click the Brainstorm button on the toolbar and start entering a note's title. Press the Enter key and start to enter the title of your next note. New notes will be created in this way untill you exit the brainstorm mode by clicking the Cancel button. You can then re-arrange the newly created notes in a tree structure by drag and drop.
You can edit a note in the live preview pane. When you browse to another record, the changes will be saved automatically. Double click a note will open it in a separate note editor window, after changes are made, click the "Save and Close" button. Biblioscape Note editor can be used to format note text. You can also paste graphics or OLE objects into a note. You can change the note icon by selecting one from combo box. You can tag a note with categories. Keywords field can be used to enter words that can help you retrieve the note in a search. Individual keywords should be separated by "; ".
Deleted notes are put in the Recycle bin, you can recovered deleted notes by clicking the Restore button in the Recycle bin.
To print the content of current note, click menu command "File | Print".
Biblioscape lets you import notes in different formats including: plain text, html, MS Access, Excel, Word, XML, Paradox, etc. The import wizard will walk you through the process step by step with many options.
You can export notes in different formats depending on your needs.
If you need to transfer notes from one database to another (for example, from your home PC to work PC), it is best to use the export wizard to export notes in Paradox format. Copy the exported files (*.DB and *.MB) to the other computer. In Biblioscape, run the import wizard and select the Paradox *.DB file. You can use all the default settings. All the fields will be mapped automatically.
Fast search is a full text indexed search. All text fields in notes table will be searched and search words will be highlighted in the result.
To retrieve all notes in your database, click menu command "Notes | Retrieve All".
During the phase of research, you may have accumulated a lot of notes. When you start to write, you can easily transfer those notes into your word processor along with references linked to those notes.
If there are references linked to the note, the linked references will be added after the selected text in the form of temporary citations. For example, if reference "Smith, J. K. 2003" is linked to the note and the selected text is "This is my first transfer...". The dropped text will become "This is my first transfer... [Smith, J. K. 2003 #439]". When you link the note to a reference, if a page number is added to the link description field, Biblioscape will include the page number as Cited Page in the temporary citation. So the dropped text will become "This is my first transfer... [Smith, J. K. 2003 @23-25 #439]". Beware that the Cited Page will not be used unless the output style you selected supports cited page. If more than one reference is linked to the note, all will be included as multiple citations separated by " / ". For example: "This is my first transfer... [Smith, J. K. 2003 @23-25 #439 / Bowen, D. 2005 #390]".
You can drag and drop text from other applications that supports inter-application drag and drop into a note. First, move the cursor position to the place you want the text to be dropped in Biblioscape note. Next, select the text in the other application, drag and drop it to Biblioscape note.