I thought I’d found the answer to all my PDF organization needs when I stumbled across Fluxiom. This online file management/DAM solution offers the ability to upload, tag, and search files from any computer to a hosted account.
I thought that it could be a good centralized solution to DevonThink for those of us on Windows, with the added bonus of being available from any computer. Sort of like a personal Google Books.
When I saw the price, I’ll admit that I winced a bit. Nine euros for the lowest-level plan seemed a little steep. However, the site design is amazing, and the functionality seemed well worth the price.
The About page boasts that Fluxiom provides “Full text search: Fast search inside documents like PDF, Excel, Word, Powerpoint, and others.”
However… once I scrolled down to the bottom of the Overview page, I discovered to my dismay that only the Basic (29 euros/month), Pro (89 euros/month), and Deluxe (169 euros/month) plans offer the full-text search feature.
For me, the full-text search within documents was the major selling feature. And 29 euros a month is rather a stretch for any academic budget. The 9 euros I might be able to justify to myself, but 29 is a bit much…
Do any readers have an alternative online PDF organizer they’d like to share? (Or does anyone have any friends at Fluxiom who we could sweet-talk into providing full-text search on the Private-level plan?)
December 12, 2007 at 10:51 pm
It looks like too much “fluffiness” anyhow.
December 13, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Zotero, the excellent open source bibliographic utility, can index the full text of pdf’s stored in it’s database, using platform specific programs with only a little setup.
http://www.zotero.org/documentation/pdf_fulltext_indexing
When you suck a citation from many online databases, Zotero will automatically grab the pdf (if it’s available). On sites where this is not automatic, it’s easy to drag a link to a pdf into your library, or to select a file on your computer. Zotero can pull in almost all bibliographic files, so it’s easy to migrate to, and everything is stored in a transparent way, so you will never be locked in.
Zotero is a firefox plugin, but in future versions will have a built-in web accessible dimension for collaboration and availability from any computer.
January 29, 2008 at 12:26 am
Fluxiom looks awesome. I definitely need to check that out. I was going to recommend Zotero - but James beat me to the punch. Zotero is my favorite research plugin for Firefox. It quickly allows me to save pdfs and citations for online journals. I can assemble my work cited lists in minutes now.