In these days of large, cheap hard drives, most of us don’t feel any need to compact a database file to save disk space.
But Personal Knowbase’s Compact command does more than reduce your data file to its minimum size. Here are three additional tasks Compact can help you with:
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PK Tip: Copying Articles from One Knowbase File to Another
Sometimes you may find it useful to copy (or move) articles from one Knowbase data file to another. You may want to break a data file into two smaller files, or to create a new file containing only a small subset of the articles in a larger file (for example, to share those articles with a friend or colleague). Or you may want to move old, obsolete articles to an “archive” data file.
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When browsing a Personal Knowbase data file — opening and closing articles while checking or looking for something — you can easily make changes accidentally.
If you realize you’ve made a change to an article that you didn’t want to change, you can immediately return the article to its last saved state. While the article window is still open, select the Undo Article Changes command from the Edit menu.
But if you know that you don’t want to make changes to a file before you open it, it’s safer to open the file in Read-Only mode to start with. In Read-Only mode, you have no risk of making unwanted changes. You will not be able to modify existing articles or create new ones.
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In Personal Knowbase, normally we locate keywords in the Index column by clicking them with the mouse. But we can also locate keywords using the keyboard. Typing to locate keywords can save you from constant scrolling in long lists of keywords.
When the highlighted cursor focus (when the highlight has a dotted outline) is in the Index column, you can type the first few letters of a keyword to move the highlight to that keyword in the list. So, for example, if you type “sm”, the highlight will move to the first keyword starting with “sm”.
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If you need to carry your notes between computers, you can use Personal Knowbase’s portability feature to install the software on a USB thumb drive or other removable media. If you’re having trouble getting PK to install in portable mode, here are a couple things to check.
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If you use Personal Knowbase to keep track of contacts, try inserting each person’s email addresses in the Attachments field to create a quick email address book.
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A recent tip talked about how to make a text list of selected article titles for using in another software application or putting into its own Personal Knowbase article.
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Sometimes you may need to make a list of articles from your Knowbase data file to use in text form, as if you had captured the text from the Titles column of the Index Window. You could use such a list to import the titles list into another software application or to import back into Personal Knowbase as a new article.
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If you frequently need to create articles with similar text fields, forms, or subheadings, you can save time and typing by creating “template” articles.
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If you want to use Personal Knowbase on a computer where you can’t install it, consider using the portable installation option.
Some companies do not allow you to install software on your work computer unless it’s on a restricted software list. Consultants can’t install their own software on clients’ machines. Or you may want to use a friend’s or relative’s computer without making any permanent changes to their system.
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