Tools & Techniques for Archival Research
- Sheridan Libraries
- Guides
- Tools & Techniques for Archival Research
- Helpful Software
Scrivener for Historians
Tools I recommend
- Zotero (for note taking and citation management)
- Jotnot (for scanning docs)
- Adobe Acrobat DC/ Pro (PDF OCR and manipulation)
- Dropbox or Box (for cloud storage)
Text Extraction Software
- ABBYY Fine Reader"OCR software turns scans, PDFs and digital photographs into searchable and editable documents. Unmatched recognition accuracy and conversion capabilities virtually eliminate retyping and reformatting. Intuitive use and one-click automated tasks let you do more in fewer steps."
OCR Conversion
OCR (Optical Text Recognition) can convert your images to text if they are in a type format. This can be very useful for searching your documents. But OCR will not work on handwriting, so it is not always useful.
Use the tools you know and love
If you love Evernote or Devonthink or Google docs, go ahead and find a workflow that uses them. I prefer to recommend free and non-commercial products if I can, but if you are already committed to a product, keep using it.