Welcome to TagNotate Read this page, even if you read nothing else This document should help you get started. The most important button in TagNotate is the, which you can find on the bottom of each screen: Tapping on it will bring up the inline help - yellow panes that tell you, depending on what s displayed on your screen, what the different buttons, menus, swipe gestures, etc. will do. The other text along that bottom bar shows the currently open folder All Files is the default folder, although you can create your own folders too. Red text, like that shown above, is an active link to a page in this document that details the feature described in red. I you follow a link within TagNotate, a leftwards arrow will appear in the top left of the screen. Tapping this arrow brings you back to where you came from. The second most important button is the Table of Contents for this document. It will take you, instantly, to the sections that most interest you. It s the button highlighted on the right, with T/C on it. Hint: If you have just installed TagNotate for the first time, this document and the accompanying FAQ include a small number of annotations and tags so that you can explore TagNotate s features right away. For features not covered here, please refer either to the accompanying FAQ document, or to. Getting Started V1.1
Browsing files The first time you open TagNotate, it will look like this (if this is your first time opening it): Files are listed in the lefthand (blue) pane. This is the TagNotate file browser, shown below with an additional file (we added it just so we could create better examples for this document): There are various ways to delete a file. The easiest is to swipe the filename leftwards. Files are in fact placed in the Trash - a special folder we shall come to later. The file browser is actually very powerful once you ve added tags to your annotations, or started using folders. We ll cover these later. For now, you ll want to get some files into TagNotate, start annotating, and then start tagging
Importing files Just tap the Get Files button. A pane will appear with three options: If you tap the highlighted area, the app will open up your Dropbox (it will ask you to sign in and authorise the very first time). Once you re in Dropbox, navigate to the file you want, tap it, and it will download. The other two options describe how to use itunes to import or export files, as well as how to use Open in function that allows other apps to send a PDF file to be opened by TagNotate. You can import multiple documents by compressing them into a zipped file and importing that. TagNotate also supports folders (these are dealt with towards the end of this document): To import files arranged in folders, compress them into a single zipped file. When you import folders into TagNotate, each file s parent folder will be turned into a folder within TagNotate, and this folder will contain all the files that were inside that folder. But it is only the parent folder that is maintained - TagNotate does not use hierarchical folder structures. Once you ve imported a file or two, you re ready to start annotating, tagging, and organising. To jump directly to the sections dealing with these, use the Table of Contents.
Opening files To open a file, tap on its name in the file browser (tapping on the arrow to the right of its name does something else. We ll come to that later). You ll then see something like this: If you double-tap the page, it will zoom up to maximise the width. If you double-tap again, it will zoom down to show an entire page. Annotating files This bit s really easy, because it s like many other PDF readers and annotators. You just select a bit of text, and an annotation pop-up then offers some options: Copy: Copies the text to the clipboard Tag: We ll come to this later. The three T s highlight, underline, and strikethrough, respectively. There s a whole lot of things going on here, and the best way to know what the different buttons means is to tap the magic. It will tell you almost everything you could want to know. For now, the two most important things are the X in the top right corner (it closes the document), and the up/ down arrows on both sides of the screen - they scroll the document down to the next screenful of text. And of course, you can use your finger to swipe up or down.
If you just select one or more words on a single line, you ll see a Define and a Search option. The former looks up the selected word or phrase in the system s dictionary and opens a pop-up right within TagNotate (multiple languages are supported). The latter searches for other instances of that word or phrase within the rest of the document. In the next example, we ve selected the Highlight tool: Nothing very surprising here It s what happens next that is unique to TagNotate NB: TagNotate automatically saves all your changes. Currently there s no Undo, but that s coming in a future release Tagging annotations If you tap on an annotation (whether it s a highlight, underline, strikethrough, note, free-text, or drawing), you ll see something like the following (the next page explains it all):
If there aren t any tags in your documents, you will see in place of the tags shown in the picture a message saying No tags here. There are tags in both this document and the accompanying FAQ, so that you can explore TagNotate s features from the get-go. There are just four - Cicero, Cato, Ovid, and Virgil (they re distinctive so you can easily delete them when no longer needed). The annotation palette The annotation that we ve selected is outlined in red. A floating palette has appeared that would show any tags associated already with the annotation (in this case, there aren t any, yet). You can associate tags with the annotation by tapping on one or more tags in the tag cloud (see below). You can change the annotation type or color, and either copy the annotated text or delete the annotation (in this case, that would remove the highlight). It s a floating palette because if you tap-and-hold the dotted area and slide your finger around, the palette will move with your finger until you release it. You close the palette by tapping the X above the dotted finger pad. Creating and assigning tags: To create a new tag, start typing its name in the text field at the top right, and then press Create. It will add the tag to the cloud (a clever animation will show you where it is if there are lots of tags there already). You must then tap it to assign it to your selected annotation. On the right, we re showing you how it would look before there are any tags in the system. Below, we ve created some tags (Cicero, explanation, decree, Latin)
The tag Cicero has been assigned to the selected annotation. The other tags shown in the tag cloud are dimmed because, although they have been created, they have not been assigned to any annotations yet. Miscellaneous stuff you can do with the tagging pane open: You can order the tags by how recently you last used them ( Date ) or alphabetically ( A-Z ) The navigation (up/down) buttons will navigate to the next annotation when the tagging pane is open (when it s closed, they revert to navigating to the next screenful of text). You can remove a tag from an annotation by tapping the big X next to its name on the floating palette. You can delete or rename a tag by tapping and holding a tag in the tag cloud. If you delete it, it will be removed from the tag cloud and from any annotations, in any document, that use that tag. If you rename it, the new name will percolate to all uses of that tag, in any document. If you have too many tags to easily see them all (the tag cloud is in fact a scrolling window) you can start typing a tag s name in that text field at the top, and it will show you all tags starting with whichever letters you ve typed. The tags shown in the tag cloud change their size depending on how often they ve been used. Larger letters mean a more frequently used tag. Hint: So far, we ve described the process as: select some text, annotate it, select the annotation, tag it. There s a shortcut: When selecting text, the annotation pop-up offers an option labelled Tag. This applies the last annotation type (highlight, underline, or strike through) and simultaneously opens up the Tagging Pane so that you can tag the new annotation without having to re-select it..
Using tags to select annotations The Annotation Summary With a document open, you ll see a left-pointing chevron on the bottom right of the screen. If you drag it to the left, you ll slide open an annotation summary pane which will show you all the annotations in the document. NB. There is a strange bug, currently, which we re investigating, which makes dragging from the right edge towards the left much harder when that s the edge with the camera on it To avoid the problem, either rotate the ipad so that the camera is on the left edge (or use the ipad in portrait mode in either case, rightward swipes from the left edge work fine), or briefly hold your finger on the edge before dragging leftwards. The screenshot below shows what happens when you open up that summary pane: Without any tags selected, all annotations are shown, even ones without tags (the 2nd annotation shown in the screenshot has no tag). You can try this now with the current document
Above, we showed the annotations as they appear in the file. But sometimes we just want to see the actual text of the annotation. Select Extracted (near the top of the screen) and that s what you ll get (notice that now you even see the text inside the note): What can you do with these annotations? You can copy one or more to the clipboard (we ll come to this later), and then paste them into another app, or email them all to yourself. If you tap on an annotation, TagNotate will re-open the document and take you back to that annotation. NB - dragging the righthand chevron rightwards (or swiping rightwards anywhere on the blue pane) will also re-open the document. Using tags to filter the annotation summary Here, we select the tag Cicero, and now we just get the annotations that have that tag:
And now we search for just those annotations that are tagged both Cicero AND Latin (we could select Any in the Require field, and that would show annotations tagged with Cicero OR Latin ). And as before, we can copy either individual annotations, or multiple annotations, to the clipboard (each time you press Copy next to an annotation, it adds it to the clipboard, without replacing what s already there). Selecting annotations across multiple documents The principle is just the same, except this time you go to the file browser, and slide that leftward pointing chevron (on the right of the screen) leftwards. The two screenshots below show the file browser and the tag cloud with all the tags used in all the documents, and then the annotation summary:
Swipe left from the right edge of the screen, and you get the annotation summary for all the files that are showing in the browser: Because no tags were selected, we get a summary of all the annotations across all the documents (and as usual, you can copy one or more to the clipboard, or tap on one to be taken to that position within the document). Swiping rightwards in the top gray panel (notice the rightward-pointing blue chevron) will close the summary.
Using tags to select annotations across multiple documents Back in the file browser, if you select a tag, it will now just list those files containing annotations tagged with that tag. (There had been three files, but now it s down to two, because one of them doesn t contain the selected Cicero tag). You can select more than one tag, and either select Any (equivalent to OR), or All (equivalent to AND). Once you ve selected a tag, not only do you filter the file list, you also filter the annotations that you d see in the summary when you slide it out (again, from that righthand chevron - i.e. dragging the edge leftwards): In this case, we see only the annotations across these two documents that were tagged Cicero. One final feature: You see those arrows to the right of each filename? Tap on one of those and it opens up an annotation summary for just that file. If any tags had been selected, the summary shows just the appropriate annotations (with that tag), and if none had been selected, the summary shows all annotations. It s a useful shortcut - saves you having to open the file and re-select the tags that you might just have selected in the file browser.
The Clipboard If you tap the indicator, you can see the contents of the clipboard: In the annotation summaries, you can copy one or more annotations to the clipboard. The clipboard indicator shows you how many annotations you ve copied, and is on the lower right of the screen: You can add more to the clipboard by copying more annotations onto it (if the screen fills up, you can scroll through the entries). When you copy text out of a document, it also goes onto the clipboard. You can selectively delete annotations you don t want on the clipboard (by selecting the X on the end of the line), and you can choose, when exporting, to include the tags or not. When it s the way you want it, you can copy the clipboard onto the system clipboard (so that it s available to other apps) or email its contents to yourself or someone else.
Folders Folders in TagNotate are smart folders. A file can be in more than one smart folder. If you delete it from within a folder, it is merely removed from that folder. There are three kinds of folders: All Files this is a privileged folder and is your file library. It cannot be removed. All files appear here. Trash this is also a privileged folder that cannot be deleted. If you use the usual leftward swipe that would ordinarily delete a folder or a file, it will instead prompt you to Empty the trash. Smart Folders these can be created or deleted. Deleting a smart folder does not delete its files. To see the folders drag the leftmost chevron, on the lefthand edge of the screen in the file browser, rightwards: To move a file into a smart folder, tap and hold the filename - an animation will signal that you ve grabbed the file, and you can then drag it into a folder (or the Trash). Tapping a smart folder replaces the contents of the File Browser pane (the blue pane) with the contents of the smart folder. It also limits the tag cloud to just those tags associated with the files in that folder (although when you tag annotations within the folder, all the tags across all your documents are shown so that you can select from the entire set of tags).
For further information use the following resources: Within the App, use the button, or open the FAQ. Email us. Press the button and a feedback button will appear immediately above it. Tap that, and you ll be presented with various options for contacting us. Visit www.tagnotate.com We shall update this document, or the FAQ, each time there is a significant enhancement to the app: Existing users who update to a new version of TagNotate will be advised if there are new versions of these files. Finally, please consider writing a review on the app store. Thank you Tim and Gerry Inc. 2014. TagNotate - Innovation in Annotation. TagNotate is a registered trademark. Patent and other trademarks pending.