Looking for PIM / Thesis Writing Software for the PC

Posted by Daly de Gagne
Oct 6, 2009 at 02:01 PM

Peter, the problem with the PC world is that though it once boasted of having more software functionality than the Mac world, what it has in quantity doesn’t equate to quality.

I would not think of paying Evernote as paying the man - the amount is reasonable, and the program offers a way to collect all sorts of material, and some ways to process it, although as I get older I find its grey on grey tag list, and the limited ability to work with tags, a pain in the butt.

There have also been repeated requests for EN developers to enhance the information management aspect of the program, which has been on hold for about two years as the program developed its cloud and multi-platform capabilities. In fact, to do that, developers actually removed information management features from EN for the PC, and have tested the loyalty of people doing heavy lifting with information in terms of getting those features back in.

Meanwhile, other programs provide those features, at least in terms of tagging and metadata. Like I said, it is hard to find a PC program where the developer seems to have covered all the bases.

However, on the plus side for EN: it captures all kind of material with great accuracy. I love that I can drag ‘n drop PDF files into it.

And what does qualify EN as a writing tool for me is that I can have more than one note open at a time.

For writing, especially when using notes with quotes ‘n stats it sure makes it easier if you can see both your data and the window you are writing in at the same time.

Surprisingly, programs such as UltraRecall and MyInfo have not thought of that.

A program that has is WhizFolders. It works with the outline metaphor, and may not be the best place to keep all your data. However it is great for writing, lets you have multiple notes open.

It also has a key word or tag system that supplements the nested folder approach that is part of the outline metaphor.

Zoot 5 will also work well for you - it has multiple open window capability, captures stuff reasonable well, etc.

The beta version, Zoot 6, is up to about its 50th build, and may be solid enough for you to use now - although as part of the beta testing process the developer asks that all data files in it be deleted.

Zoot may be the best example here of an information collector, information processor, and writing environment.

One of its long time users and advocates is James Fallows, national correspondent of The Atlantic Monthly. There used to be on the Zoot Yahoo Groups site a file with James’ template for organizor research material for articles.

His articles, though well written and quite readable, are information and reference dense. He has found Zoot a good way to deal with a myriad of quotes ‘n stats ‘n facts that have to be woven together into an elegant work of enlightening prose.

Daly