Speaking of “cool� in my last posting, there’s another cool thing you can use to organize your PDF files-- iTunes.
Lately, I’ve been catching snippets of ITunes and PDF in the same sentence, and would never have thought to associate those two words together. But, on giving it a second thought—why not? It’s a digital file you can download, it’s a real handy way of keeping your files organized, and it keeps files at your fingertips if you have your iTunes cranked up on your computer while working.
Eager and curious on my search, I was able to dig up some info and some tips. And testing it out myself on a 2 GB Nano, I was excited at the outcome (I’m very easy to please when I see technology at work).
The simplest way I found to get those PDFs into your library is to open up your iTunes library and then drag and drop the PDF files into it. That’s it. The PDFs will show up listed in your library’s music list with all your other songs.
If you want to separate your music files from your PDF files (because, let’s face it-- what would organization be if your files were all mixed up?), you can create a New Smart Playlist for it as you would a regular playlist for your songs. Just set up the conditions to Kind Contains PDF.
The Alter Ego Of The iPod
And one more cool thing about this. Because the iPod is also a storage device, it can act as an alternative to a USB flash drive. If you download other types of digital files onto it, this means you can also download PDF files directly onto your iPod.
But, don’t get too excited. You’ll first need to convert them into text files first. And, of course, as a text file, there won’t be any cool PDF graphics or images. Just plain text.
Open up the PDF file and within the PDF Reader, simply select the Save as Text option in the File menu on the toolbar. Once you have a copy of the file in the text format, copy and paste them (just like you would with a regular file) into the iPod’s Notes folder which you can access via My Computer. You’ll see it listed as a hard drive. To view it on your iPod, go into Extras where the Notes folder is located.
The iPod may not be a PDA killer, but using it as one is definitely a cool tip.
