NOTES/HIGHLIGHTS: Help me use them properly, please

Roger Feenstra
Roger Feenstra Member Posts: 459
edited November 20 in English Forum

I have used Logos for many years, but there is one feature that has stumped me: Notes/Highlights.  I don't understand how they work.  Notes and highlights are placed under "emphasis markup", "highlighter pens", "inductive/precept", etc., depending on which highlighter I am using; I get that. 

Is there a place to find my notes and highlights in a particular book?  For instance, if I am reading through the book of Esther, and make notes and highlights, would it not be practical, when I want to go back and review my notes/highlights, to look up "Esther" and find all of my markings?  Or any other book I choose to mark?  Perhaps that is possible and I am too dim to discover how it works ;).

Any and all thoughts on the best way to use notes/highlights would be welcomed.

Thanks!

Elder/Pastor, Hope Now Bible Church, Fresno CA

Comments

  • Graham Criddle
    Graham Criddle MVP Posts: 32,452

    Hi Roger

    Notes/Highlights.  I don't understand how they work.  Notes and highlights are placed under "emphasis markup", "highlighter pens", "inductive/precept", etc., depending on which highlighter I am using; I get that. 

    Highlights are stored in notes files and you can control where they are stored - and it is important to think about this as part of your approach to highlighting.

    You have four options - palette-specific, most recent, resource-specific, or a specific notes file. Details in the help file

    I tend to use resource-specific notes files for highlighting so I have a separate notes file for each book (not talking about biblical books here) I read

    Notes are also stored in notes files - by default, the most recent notes file you have been using but you can control this when you create a note.

    When reading a biblical book - such as your example of Esther - even if using resource-specific notes files all the highlights would end up in just one notes file per Bible. And with what you have described about you have all your highlights in a few palette-specific files

    So this is where searching comes in useful.

    There is much more to explore here but hopefully this will help get things started and point in some useful directions.

  • Andrew Zoll
    Andrew Zoll Member Posts: 182

    I have used Logos for many years, but there is one feature that has stumped me: Notes/Highlights.  I don't understand how they work.  Notes and highlights are placed under "emphasis markup", "highlighter pens", "inductive/precept", etc., depending on which highlighter I am using; I get that. 

    Is there a place to find my notes and highlights in a particular book?  For instance, if I am reading through the book of Esther, and make notes and highlights, would it not be practical, when I want to go back and review my notes/highlights, to look up "Esther" and find all of my markings?  Or any other book I choose to mark?  Perhaps that is possible and I am too dim to discover how it works ;).

    Any and all thoughts on the best way to use notes/highlights would be welcomed.

    Thanks!

    Hey Pastor Roger,

    There are a few ways to find highlights. The first way is to look at your notes containing highlights, and put it in quotes view to see the quotes. You can also choose which notes document a type of highlighting will go to by going to highlighting, clicking the down arrow in the palette, and selecting "Save in:" then choosing a note that's already been created, or choose to create a note specifically for this palette of highlighting, or create a note for each resource you highlight. (See attached images below)

    If you are more concerned with specifically finding ALL highlights within a resource, you can run a search, {highlight *} within the selected resource (or within all of your library for that matter) and it will find every highlight within the resource(s) you have set.

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  • Chris Garrett
    Chris Garrett Member Posts: 54 ✭✭

    Hello!

    On this topic, I'm wondering if you could help me clarify something. I have all my highlighters set to create a note in a resource-specific file. And that works perfectly fine for books I'm reading.  However, whenever I make a highlight in my NIV bible, it creates a new Note for each highlight. Currently I have 213 NIV notes.  I would think that it should be putting them all in one "NIV Notes" note, but you can see in the screenshot that it is in 213 different notes.  Where have I gone wrong? Thanks for any ideas!

    blessings,

    Chris

  • JT (alabama24)
    JT (alabama24) MVP Posts: 36,472

    Chris - when & where do you make your bible highlights? Is that different than other ones? Can you reproduce? You aren't doing anything wrong, there must be a bug. Please create a new thread and answer those questions, providing as much detail as possible 

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  • Michael McLane
    Michael McLane Member Posts: 891

    Chris, I am more concerned that you have 47 tasks that are due in OmniFocus. Yikes! [:S]

    That sends my OCD screaming.

  • Whyndell Grizzard
    Whyndell Grizzard Member Posts: 3,497 ✭✭✭

    I quit using this joke part of Logos. Got tired of 100,000 note files!!!!!!!!!

  • Philana R. Crouch
    Philana R. Crouch Member, Logos Employee Posts: 4,597

    Hello!

    On this topic, I'm wondering if you could help me clarify something. I have all my highlighters set to create a note in a resource-specific file. And that works perfectly fine for books I'm reading.  However, whenever I make a highlight in my NIV bible, it creates a new Note for each highlight. Currently I have 213 NIV notes.  I would think that it should be putting them all in one "NIV Notes" note, but you can see in the screenshot that it is in 213 different notes.  Where have I gone wrong? Thanks for any ideas!

    blessings,

    Chris

    Chris,

    I've been able to reproduce this issue, and will get a case written up for the team.

  • Chris Garrett
    Chris Garrett Member Posts: 54 ✭✭

    Yes ha ha!  Welcome to my non-OCD world.  I guess that's why I like the "omni" more than the "focus"!  :-) 

    blessings,

    Chris

  • Armin
    Armin Member Posts: 1,501 ✭✭✭

    I quit using this joke part of Logos. Got tired of 100,000 note files!!!!!!!!!

    Although I have been told several times that I should use resource-specific notes files, I have so far not done this for exactly this reason. I would get way too many notes files and have so far not heard of a reasonable approach to manage all the notes files. My highlighting notes file is huge, but at least I am still in control of my notes files.

    Especially when it comes to highlighting, I find it difficult to understand why highlights are implemented as notes. 

    I hope that the new notes facility that has been rumoured about will help. 

    Armin

  • JT (alabama24)
    JT (alabama24) MVP Posts: 36,472

    I find it difficult to understand why highlights are implemented as notes.

    This concept is powerful, and could be very useful in some circumstances... If I were writing research papers, I would use this. For most users under "normal" usage, however, it is overkill and potentially counter productive. 

    I have so far not done this for exactly this reason

    The issue with the OP isn't the same as your reasoning... He hasn't come back, but I believe if he does we will find out that these notes were created on mobile and that he can't reproduce on desktop. The bug, of course, could have hit those using another schema, so that shouldn't be a determinant. 

    I would get way too many notes files and have so far not heard of a reasonable approach to manage all the notes files.

    For a VERY long time (4+ years?), I have argued that the DEFAULT behavior should be "resource specific" note documents which are HIDDEN by default in the document list. A toggle would reveal them. 

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  • Chris Garrett
    Chris Garrett Member Posts: 54 ✭✭

    Hi Alabama,

    Thanks for your responses.  I see that Faithlife has duplicated the error and created a case for the team.

    To respond to your inquiry, I am creating these notes on my Macbook and just highlighting the NIV bible text as I read using my shortcut key for the yellow solid color.  Each time I do that, it creates a new note file, containing only that one note.  A bit unwieldy!  

  • Graham Criddle
    Graham Criddle MVP Posts: 32,452

    Each time I do that, it creates a new note file, containing only that one note.  A bit unwieldy!  

    Do you, by any chance, have a Document - other than a notes file - called "The New International Version"?

  • Matthew
    Matthew Member Posts: 941

    Any and all thoughts on the best way to use notes/highlights would be welcomed.

    Like many here, I use resource-specific note files. This prevents any given file from getting too large and unwieldy. I can always find the relevant note file because it always has the same name as its corresponding book. The only exception is when I am adding a short note to a Bible verse. For those cases, I create a separate note file for each book of the Bible, and I always choose the option to "attach to reference." The rationale for this is that my Bible notes 1 Corinthians, for example, are not tied to any particular translation or spread out  among multiple files.

  • EastTN
    EastTN Member Posts: 1,423 ✭✭✭

    For a VERY long time (4+ years?), I have argued that the DEFAULT behavior should be "resource specific" note documents which are HIDDEN by default in the document list. A toggle would reveal them. 

    Yes, please ... please ... please!  

    We really need default behavior that makes sense for new users.  In simple terms, if I buy a base package today and just start using it, six months and several hundred notes from now I shouldn't suddenly find that I've created a mess for myself simply because I've been using the default settings.

  • Chris Garrett
    Chris Garrett Member Posts: 54 ✭✭

    Each time I do that, it creates a new note file, containing only that one note.  A bit unwieldy!  

    Do you, by any chance, have a Document - other than a notes file - called "The New International Version"?

    Hi Graham,

    Bingo! You found it. I do have such a file with about 20 notes in it. This must have been the original resource-specific file that Logos created.  Oddly to me, there are both highlight notes from the NIV, plus highlights from commentaries that I was reading. Not sure why commentary highlights would be in this folder since they are not from the NIV... but I won't worry about that for now.  For some reason it appears that Logos started saving all new "New International Version" notes in a separate, new file, so I ended up with 213 "New International Version" files.  

    Now the trick for me is to find out the following:

    a) how to get all future highlights in the NIV to populate into this original "New International Version" file

    b) how to merge the other 213 highlights into this file.

    blessings,

    Chris

  • Mary-Ellen
    Mary-Ellen Member Posts: 477 ✭✭

    This must have been the original resource-specific file that Logos created.

    This reminds me of something I learned the hard way -- that is, if I change the title of the resource, the corresponding "resource-specific" note file title will not change.  Next time I create a new highlight note in that resource, a new note file is automatically generated with the revised resource title.

    I use some resource naming conventions that help me get a sorting order that fits my work style, among other things.  Implementing the renaming has been a long-term process.  It took me a while to realize the unintended effect on my highlighting note files.

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  • Philana R. Crouch
    Philana R. Crouch Member, Logos Employee Posts: 4,597

    Hello!

    On this topic, I'm wondering if you could help me clarify something. I have all my highlighters set to create a note in a resource-specific file. And that works perfectly fine for books I'm reading.  However, whenever I make a highlight in my NIV bible, it creates a new Note for each highlight. Currently I have 213 NIV notes.  I would think that it should be putting them all in one "NIV Notes" note, but you can see in the screenshot that it is in 213 different notes.  Where have I gone wrong? Thanks for any ideas!

    blessings,

    Chris

    This problem with the duplicate note files should be fixed in 7.6 (7.6.0.0027)

  • Christopher Klein
    Christopher Klein Member Posts: 22

    @ Chris Garrett

    Can you tell me how you got the NIV 1984 Bible?  I thought it was not available in Logos.

    Thanks!!

  • JT (alabama24)
    JT (alabama24) MVP Posts: 36,472

    Can you tell me how you got the NIV 1984 Bible?  I thought it was not available in Logos.

    The tense is important. It isn't available; it was available. The publisher no longer allows it to be sold. The only way to acquire it currently is through the sale from one user to another. Another option for some: the anglicized version. 

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  • Philana R. Crouch
    Philana R. Crouch Member, Logos Employee Posts: 4,597

    @ Chris Garrett

    Can you tell me how you got the NIV 1984 Bible?  I thought it was not available in Logos.

    Thanks!!

    Christopher,

    We do not currently sell the US edition of the 1984 edition of the NIV (although some users do have this from a past purchase). We do sell the https://www.logos.com/product/29979/the-holy-bible-new-international-version-anglicised which might be fairly close. 

  • Graham Criddle
    Graham Criddle MVP Posts: 32,452

    We do sell the https://www.logos.com/product/29979/the-holy-bible-new-international-version-anglicised which might be fairly close. 

    It is fairly close (English/American spelling differences, some words are changed to reflect local usage) but it doesn't have a Reverse Interlinear which is worth bearing in mind.

  • Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)
    Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :) MVP Posts: 23,113

    We do sell the https://www.logos.com/product/29979/the-holy-bible-new-international-version-anglicised which might be fairly close. 

    It is fairly close (English/American spelling differences, some words are changed to reflect local usage) but it doesn't have a Reverse Interlinear which is worth bearing in mind.

    Screen shot has visual filters enabled for US edition of 1984 NIV (from an older base package purchase).

    Keep Smiling [:)]

  • Christopher Klein
    Christopher Klein Member Posts: 22

    Thank you to all for your responses to my question!