Biographer Needs a Jumpstart

waverley — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:35:56 +0000

I’m working on a biography for a major publisher and have always used index cards to keep track of the thousands of facts that fill my books. But I’m inclined to use NB to keep everything in one place without spilling over into the entire house.
I’ve downloaded the program—and it looks great—but I’m having a tough time getting it to look like something I could use. So…say I am Ted Kennedy’s biographer (I’m not). I’d want to start a notebook whose divider tabs would probably list: “childhood,” “college years,” “John & Bobby,” “Ethel,” “Senate,” etc. etc. And I would hope that I could just keep filling the pages in each section with facts, whenever I found something new to put there. Is this possible? And how do I set up sections so that they appear on those divider tabs?
I appreciate any help anyone can provide.

ptram commented

ptram — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:34:27 +0000

Waverley,

I would go to the Contents divider page, and choose Page > Divider Page for each of your sections.

Then, while in the relevant divider page, I would add Note pages as needed. You can even add a new page following the current one, while in a page.

Since waste of paper and space is not a problem, I would create a separate page for each fact. This will be easy to find out in the Contents page, or by opening the side Contents Card.

Also, the Multidex will help you jump to a relevant fact very quickly, and immediately see the inner relationship between different pages.

Paolo

waverley commented

waverley — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:44:07 +0000

Thanks Paolo.
This sound exactly like the process I’ve been looking for.
Cheers,
Waverley

Sarah commented

Sarah — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 22:51:11 +0000

Hi, Hi

I am writing a doctoral dissertation and am considering using Notebook. It looks great, but I have a few questions:

Is it possible to create anything like old fashioned index cards – ie to take notes from a book and enter them point by point in a way that I can change later? I want to only have one file open while I am taking notes, and then go back and put the key words in later.

From the example here – opening different pages – it sounds like I’d have to classify the points as I took them – that’s a different part of my brain than the transcribing one, and I need to engage it at a different time.

Also, is it then possible to move the “index cards” around? to group them in different configurations?

Thanks very much for any help you can offer.
Sarah

ptram commented

ptram — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 22:14:50 +0000

Hi Sarah,

I suggest you to do this way:

- Write a single note or set of notes per each Note (Outline) page. Just use each page as a single index card.

- When done, go to the Summary page. There, create Divider pages as you would with dividers in an index card system, and drag the note pages/index card in the the relevant section.

Paolo