blackest Loc: Ireland

For the 20th Century photographers had a notebook and a pencil to keep a photographers diary, you can still get these.

What can we do in the 21st century now we have smart phones and tablets?
I was inspired to think about this because of someone who needed to know a setting for his camera and really the answer was rtfm but that got me thinking. The idea of lugging your manual around on a shoot if you have it on paper doesn't appeal. Most Camera manuals are available as pdf documents but they are formatted for A4 / legal sized paper which is ok on a laptop but do you want to drag a laptop around with you?

Most of us have smart phones and or tablets and I want to discuss what we might do with them.

Pdf's are too big for small screens something that can resize and reflow would be better like webpages and the closest thing to web pages is epub
There are readers on most platforms and most epubs will reflow to fit the page.

But we need the ability to write as well as read.

There is a handy program called sigil this is available for mac windows and linux and its pretty much a word processor for epub documents. You can infact cut and paste from other programs such as word or writer even highlight and copy text from pdf files. You could even take a reply from here on UHH and paste it into your document.

once saved as an epub this can be transfered to your phone or tablet. There are numerous ereader applications that you can choose to open the epub with.

I wanted more
so i started looking at android software.

Epubator was one app i found,free it converts pdf files into epub files on android. This may be able to transform your pdf manual into something you can read on your phone or tablet. I still need to test that out.

What i really wanted was an epub writer. So i could edit pages on a mobile device. Turns out there is an epubwriter available for different devices called bookcreator it's designed to be easy to use for kids even and you can add pictures videos from your phone or tablets gallery.

It appears to be free for the iphone and a paid app on android it is free for windows 10 and 8.

As far as first impressions go this looks useful.

Have you found anything better? Or am I on a fools errand and i should stick to a pen and a spiral bound note pad :)

If you have a tablet iannotatePdf is pretty useful and lets you make notes on a pdf file. Kind of useful when you decode manual speak and want to make an english note on the page. A tablet is still a fair sized piece of electronics to haul around with you so I think an alternative to pdf is needed for smaller devices.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

When I get a new camera, I look at the manual once I receive it and that is usually it, after that I don't need it anymore. I do not have a phone or tablet (never will). If I ever need a pencil and paper for anything, it usually is for some important date I suppose to remember, but that's it.

dave.speeking Loc: Brooklyn OH

A portable voice recorder while busy taking pix, and voice recognizing
software like Dragon Natural Speaking to transcribe to word processing
should do the trick.

rjaywallace Loc: Wisconsin

I use iA Writer from the Apple app store. The version designed for iPad is not expensive, tho the syncable MAC version is costly (haven't bought that yet). iA Writer is a free-form text tool - extremely easy to use and comes with a modified (and customizable) keyboard. Boots up very quickly, so probably wouldn't be hard to use for taking notes in the field. Easy to create and add new documents. Some users have actually used it to write the first draft of full novels. All the usual edit tools are available. /Ralph

blackest Loc: Ireland

Epubator was a bit of a disappointment it managed to pull images and text from the pdf files i tried it with, but each line of text was written without spaces. Which makes it quite useless. I really do not want to be editing a document word by word adding spaces.

Bookcreator (bookcreator.com) I tried the Windows 10 version and it is easy to use but also pretty limited as far as text goes.
you get basic text boxes on a page you can choose font, bold, justification. But you can't do a bold title line and the rest in normal text in a single text box. So I deleted the first line and created a second text box on the page and made that bold.

Then i exported my book to epub. This seemed to cause some digestive issues with different epub readers on one the "title" I had created came after the body text. I also found resizing was a bit of a disaster with 2 text blocks on the page they would overlap as you made the text bigger.

Is it all a total disaster, well no if you keep things simple it will work but it will require some rework in a tool like sigil so if i stick to a single text box per page i can edit and format it later on my mac or pc in sigil. I think i am still looking for something better.

Rongnongno Loc: FL

Are you aware that the pen and pencil are coming back from the nearly dead???

I was reading an article on that not so long ago (Last week?)...

Anyway, what is written on paper cannot be hacked. Stolen, read, yes.

Seriously now, for privacy snail mail is the best. In theory only the gvt can read (spy on you) by opening your stuff.

blackest Loc: Ireland

There is machine reading, for example your handwritten zip code can be machine read and sorted automatically:) The google books project wasn't relying on people typing in the text...

Anyway here's a video giving a brief overview of bookcreator being used to make an ebook.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqf0bjqz4FE&list=PLwflOcLg7wbn6lk6JpH0qSliD52r5mjir&index=5

There is potential to do all sorts maybe just read a story to your grand children ... wouldn't they love that.

brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

I find comfort in knowing I am not the only one who has trodden these paths! It is now to the point, with my retirement, that my 'note-taking' needs have significantly dwindled. Over the last several years, I've gravitated to a Microsoft app titled OneNote (primarily because my employer was a major Microsoft subscriber). Will I declare it the best? No. But, each of us is gonna have our own style/system/needs, and I'm convinced this effort to find the "perfect" app/process is futile.

That said, I'm anxious to have a look at your suggestions. And, the saga continues. :-)

As Rongnongno said, pencil and paper is looking increasingly attractive.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Trying to hold a pencil and pad and a camera at the same time is tough. Even worse when it's a tablet, which is significantly more expensive. You can drop a pad of paper without much damage beyond bent pages. Voice recorders can be pretty small and could probably be taped to the camera (or strap if you use one). They can be voice activated so you don't have to push buttons at all.

The Nikon pro level cameras have a built-in voice recorder which will allow you to associate a 30 second audio file with your image.

blackest Loc: Ireland

At least a couple of my camera's do video and i think all my phones can record just audio.. the camera might be better as the file name will be next to the photo's and on the same card.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

For sheet film, I use a program called Expodev. Once all of the preliminary work is done and input, it is quite useful. In addtion I also use a small notebook.
--Bob

Impressionist

The way forward is an appreciation of the past. Go Bic....

dcampbell52 Loc: Clearwater Fl

I have the pdf version of my camera and lens manuals, the mobile version of DOF Master (they have IOS and Android versions) And Windows & Palm versions. I didn't see an Apple version but its probably there too. I also have the Photographer's Ephemeris http://photoephemeris.com/
Which is great for calculating times of sunrise/sunset, moonrise and moonset and their exact locations for picking shooting spots. (It worked great for the "super" moon rising and setting locations because it not only has the map but also satellite views of the area and you can look for building obstructions etc.)

I also carry any other camera utilities that I may find. I use these on my Android cell phone when possible or on my laptop. Be warned that if its on your laptop, you MAY need a Wi-Fi connection for them to work properly.

boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

Don't have,nor want, a smart phone or tablet. I just commit the manual to memory. Takes me about 2 hours. (If you believe that, I have a bridge-----)

Martino Loc: Northwest Florida

I drag stone tablets and a chisel around, or often use cave paintings to record notes.....

Seriously though, look at Evernote products. They are simple, cross platform and sync for free.