New user feedback

Hi,

As a new user, I will share my feedback or issues regarding the transition:
I like Paperfile. This is constructive feedback.

a) Many pdfs had metadata. I hoped the system would retrieve the author, the tags… But it couldn’t. I spent a lot of time redoing that work. Previously, I would open each pdf with Acrobat and would fill the metadata. While the information was hidden in Google Drive, it was available in Windows Explorer and synched with Google Drive through Google Drive File Stream.

b) My folder “books” had subfolders. I lost them.

c) I couldn’t change type in bulk. Most pdfs were imported as “Miscellaneous”.

d) The Search facility could be more powerful. I am not suggesting being as powerful as Digitile. It goes as far as turning pdfs into images and use OCR to index all documents. But additional fields could be indexed and I would welcome the ability to use operators.

e) Thirty percent of the screen real estate is empty. I would gladly see more information in this area.

f) The behavior is not clear when I bookmark a webpage with the chrome extension:

  • the system clears my filters and tags in my current view to only show the bookmark.
    or
  • the system inserts the new bookmark in my current view.

Thanks for the feedback, Michel. It would be useful to know details about how you imported, but I’ll address each point as best I can:

a) Did you import these PDFs by uploading them? We parse file metadata and are usually able to get reference details, provided they’re properly coded in the file itself. You mention the information was hidden in Google Drive, are you referring to the metadata?

b) Did you import this folder from another reference manager? Preserving folder info / classification is unfortunately not always possible.

c) Bulk edits / operations are not yet supported in our system. I’ve added your +1 to the topic on our internal tracker for the team to consider.

d) We are currently working on expanding our search capabilities (particularly full-text search) so hopefully we’ll have some good news to share on this front in the near future. Also adding your +1 to the topic on our tracker.

e) We’ve also gotten this feedback before. An UI refresh is in the pipeline; when we’re able to prioritize the matter we’ll be discussing ways to optimize screen real estate and perhaps offer customization options.

f) Indeed, when importing a ‘website reference’ via the extension you are automatically taken to the entry on your library, presumably for immediate editing. Any filters that were applied are replaced to show the new reference on its own; if no filters were set then you see the new item at the top of the ‘All Papers’ section (like any newly imported reference).

Let me know if you have any further questions or comments.