Even More PDF Tools

As a follow-up to my previous post, here is an excellent review of some more great PDF conversion and manipulation tools.
Also I am happy to report that I have had good success converting PDF images to plain text with OCR terminal, so give it a try!

Search your PDFs with OCR

Paper isn’t going away, of course, but having all your documents on such an antiquated medium is often less than ideal. There is at least one major disadvantage to paper: searching is much more difficult. That’s just one of the reasons PDFs are so popular! Anybody can open a PDF file for free, search it [...]

Amazed by Google Books

Digitalization is the way of the future, and with the recent deal between authors and Google books, that future may in fact be bright for all parties.
In the course of my dissertation work I often have to track down primary sources, and when those sources are particularly rare it becomes difficult. Or it used to [...]

Using Zotero for Web-page Annotation and Highlighting

In addition to a whole host of great features, you can use Zotero to annotate Web pages that you have saved as snapshots.
Zotero allows you to take a snapshot of any web page for later viewing. If I then view that snapshot (all the files for which are stored on your hard drive, and therefore [...]

Bibleworks 8 Announced

The folks over at BibleWorks have announced the release of the eighth iteration of their software product. The announcement includes an extensive list of upgrades and new features. Read the whole announcement. Here are some highlights:
New Features
The biggest advances appear to be in the area of searching and analysis (rather than text handling or diagramming, [...]

Setting Up Zotero: Link by Link

The following is a set of links that will be useful for those trying to set up Zotero on their computers. (Not sure what Zotero is or why you would want it? Check out their site, and don’t miss the demo video).
Initial Setup

Firefox Web Browser. Zotero runs as a plugin within this excellent browser.
The Zotero [...]

Import and Edit PDFs with OpenOffice

One handy OpenOffice extension out there is Sun’s PDF Import Extension. Their description:
The PDF Import Extension allows modifying existing PDF files for which the original source files do not exist anymore. PDF documents are imported in Draw and Impress to preserve the layout and to allow basic editing. It is the perfect solution for changing [...]

BibleArc Lets You Create Thought-Flow Diagrams

There are a variety of method of diagramming available to the student of the Bible, but very few tools to actually assist in creating such diagrams. Well BibleArc does just thought, providing scholars and preachers alike with an easy way to begin constructing their own diagrams. You can view my hastily created diagram to the [...]

Searching for Papias

In the course of preparing material for New Testament Introduction I needed to track down a quote from Papias (I am making a concerted effort to check all primary sources in so far as I am able). The result: I am increasingly impressed by the Internet Archive. Not only did they actually have Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical [...]

Free Office Software: OpenOffice 3.0 Released!

In honor of the release of OpenOffice 3.0 I thought I would make it my first post in the Don’t Pay for Software Series.
What is OpenOffice.org?
It is an office document suite, similar to (but better and free-er than) Microsoft Office or (for those of you who still use it) WordPerfect. Now don’t be nervous because [...]