The idea of having PDF for my research was certainly not a new idea. I turned several students on to the idea in grad school. I even turned in the CD as my compilation of my research works which was a lot simpler than turning in a few boxes of research paper.
I read this fine article on Make this morning:
Digg user enjayenel wrote "I love using iTunes as a PDF library tool. I have hundreds of PDF manuals that I need organized access to. I just add them into the iTunes Library, edit the ID3 tags, create a smart playlist to group them together, and turn on the Browse feature (command-b) to get quick navigation to the PDF I am looking for based on title, product name (artist tag), and version (album tag). Double clicking the PDF opens it in your default PDF viewer".
Holy crap batman. I can't wait to get home to my several thousand pdf files and use one of the best applications yet. This functionality will change how I do research from now on. I have now read up on (almost) everyone's opinion regarding pdf files in iTunes, and there are some bit I like and I don't like. I think the idea of turning off the "copy to iTunes directory" is a bad thing. Let me tell you why...one word...backups. If you let your iPod auto sync with iTunes, you will automatically have a backup of your work, no more late night crashes, even more so, your information is organized.
To get that information organized we will have to modify the id3 tags in the meta data of the file in iTunes. I also have to agree that PDF support should be a plugin from apple. On the mac, imho, nothing beats preview and it's abilities, Foxit Reader may do it for me, I will test it tonight.
I am now wondering if there is an automated way to import the data, perhaps the title information from the pdf itself. I know this is all just stored in the XML, but there must be a way. I will have to check the automator script archives around the web to see if there is anything useful. Just the use of smart playlists now have me jumping for joy.
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