I use digital notebooks in my family law practice, and doing so makes me much more efficient. One of my favorite tools that I use in trying complex cases is Circus Ponies Notebook. However, one of the drawbacks of Notebook is that is not a cloud application, and it is therefore not as "portable" as I would like.
Notebook is a Mac-only program, but fortunately there is a way to read Notebook files on something other than a Mac, such as an iPad, iPhone, or even a PC. What’s even better is that the process of getting the Notebook into a portable mode is extremely quick and easy. After you have finished preparing your Notebook for trial, follow these steps:
Step 1: Export your Notebook. Click File –> Export as Website –> To Disk
Step 2: Move the html file to your iPad or iPhone using Airsharing.
Step 3: Navigate to the html file on your iPad or iPhone and open the "index" file.
You will now be able to view Notebook file on your iPhone or iPad, including all of your attachments. All of the PDFs, audio files, video files, etc. that you put into your Notebook are accessible in your exported / portable Notebook file.
IMPORTANT: In order to be able to access the attachments in the exported "Notebook", you need to be sure to have selected “copy the file into the Notebook” in your Preferences pane when putting the Notebook together (before exporting it).
Here are some considerations:
- Manual process. You have to manually export each Notebook.
- Read only. The exported html can only be viewed. You cannot add, change or remove things from the exported notebook file.
- Notebooks are not updated. One of the gems of the Notebook, is that it is so easy to update what is going on with your case. It may be obvious that once you export the file as an HTML is that the exported file is a snapshot of the Notebook file at a particular time. The exported notebook file will not update with any additional information you may put into the Notebook file on the computer.
Source: "MILOfest 2010: Ben Stevens on Taking Notebooks to Go" by Tom Stasiuk, published at his Planet 10 Tech blog.
