April 2006 Newsletter
Tools, Tip and Websites
Copernic Desktop Search
by David Coverston, Orlando Chapter Secretary
How much time do you spend looking for
information? You know you had it in a document somewhere, but you can’t remember the name of the document, so you can’t find it. Maybe you remember that it was a Word document or a PDF file, or that there was a particular phrase in the document you want to find, but it still eludes you. Well, you are not alone. A white paper by Adobe quotes a study estimating that “while professionals spend only 5% to 15% of their time reading information, they spend up to 50% of their time looking for it.“ If you work on a lot of
different projects, it can be pretty difficult to remember which project the information you are looking for might be in.
This month’s featured tool may help you. It has sure helped me. There are a number of desktop search programs available, both free and commercial. Some are more intrusive than others, and features
vary from one to another. But before I tell you about the one I use, let me first tell you why I chose it, and then you can decide if it is right for you.
First, I do not like intrusive software. I do not like “ET software”, that is, software that likes to phone home and report on my activities. Not that I am doing anything I shouldn’t be doing, but I’m willing to forego some convenience for privacy, and to preclude any security risks.
Second, a feature I wanted was the ability to search network files, since some of my documents are stored on a network.
Third, the file types I most need to search are text files, Word documents, PDF files, and html files. So I preferred a search tool would support all those formats without needing to install additional software to do it.
Fourth, price is important. My favorite price is free. And no advertisements either, please.
For these reasons, I use Copernic Desktop Search. Copernic has taken the top spot in more than one evaluation. See the links at the end of this article to decide for yourself what tool would best suit your needs.
Copernic is a free search tool available from http://www.copernic.com. The download is an executable file, so just double-click the file and follow the prompts to install it. Copernic can search Word, PowerPoint, Excel, WordPerfect, Acrobat, HTML, text, and XML files, and more. It can search through emails, if you use Outlook or Thunderbird, and search for metadata on graphic and music files.
After the initial setup, Copernic lives as an icon in the system tray area of your Windows task bar. Right-click on the icon, then choose Open Copernic Desktop Search to begin your search.
The Copernic tray icon
Like all desktop search programs, Copernic works by first building an index of the files you want to search. You select the folders you want to search (or ignore) on the Files tab of the Options dialog box. Copernic builds an index of the files you want to search, and gives you options of when and how you want to update that index.
The Files tab on the Options dialog box
One quirk of this tab is that to exclude items like your floppy drive or a particular folder you must click Add, then select None. Reminds me of the Windows logic that to turn your computer off, you click Start, then Shut Down.
You can quickly check or set the indexing status from the tray icon. Set the indexing to occur in the background so that you can work on other things and it won't slow you down.
To begin a search, open the program and type your term in the Search For text box. Copernic begins searching as soon as you begin typing in the search window. You can use the search operators AND, OR, NOT, as well as quotation marks, parenthesis and filename searches. You can also limit your search to a file type or a particular folder by selecting those items in the drop-down lists in the Refine Search text box.
The Files tab on the Options dialog box
Clicking a filename in the Files list (which changes to the Matching Files list) opens the document in the Preview window. Double-clicking the filename will open it in the associated application.Your search terms are highlighted on the Preview window title bar in different colors, matching the highlighted terms in the document. The Preview window changes to display the name of the selected file. Clicking a term on the title bar will take you to the hit in the document. Right-clicking the folder list opens a context menu with the choices of Open This folder, Expand All Groups, and Collapse All Groups.There are more features, but to appreciate them, download a copy and try it for yourself.
The lack of some features are viewed as drawbacks in some of the comparisons I read, but this lack may be just what you might want. For example, not having an integrated Internet search function caused some applications to be rated lower in some comparisons, but in my opinion, I would rather have these functions separated.
If you want to find out more, check these reviews out:
The Copernic tray icon
Like all desktop search programs, Copernic works by first building an index of the files you want to search. You select the folders you want to search (or ignore) on the Files tab of the Options dialog box. Copernic builds an index of the files you want to search, and gives you options of when and how you want to update that index.
The Files tab on the Options dialog box
One quirk of this tab is that to exclude items like your floppy drive or a particular folder you must click Add, then select None. Reminds me of the Windows logic that to turn your computer off, you click Start, then Shut Down.
You can quickly check or set the indexing status from the tray icon. Set the indexing to occur in the background so that you can work on other things and it won't slow you down.
To begin a search, open the program and type your term in the Search For text box. Copernic begins searching as soon as you begin typing in the search window. You can use the search operators AND, OR, NOT, as well as quotation marks, parenthesis and filename searches. You can also limit your search to a file type or a particular folder by selecting those items in the drop-down lists in the Refine Search text box.
The Files tab on the Options dialog box
Clicking a filename in the Files list (which changes to the Matching Files list) opens the document in the Preview window. Double-clicking the filename will open it in the associated application.Your search terms are highlighted on the Preview window title bar in different colors, matching the highlighted terms in the document. The Preview window changes to display the name of the selected file. Clicking a term on the title bar will take you to the hit in the document. Right-clicking the folder list opens a context menu with the choices of Open This folder, Expand All Groups, and Collapse All Groups.There are more features, but to appreciate them, download a copy and try it for yourself.
The lack of some features are viewed as drawbacks in some of the comparisons I read, but this lack may be just what you might want. For example, not having an integrated Internet search function caused some applications to be rated lower in some comparisons, but in my opinion, I would rather have these functions separated.
If you want to find out more, check these reviews out:
- A cnet.com review of desktop search software http://http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3684_7-6313062-1.html
- An evaluation of 12 desktop search tools by the University of Wisconsin-Madison http://www.uwebc.org/decisiontools/
- Comments on Copernic http://arstechnica.com/reviews/apps/desktop-search.ars/3