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I would like to be able to search and organise large numbers of text files. I do research and often download articles and papers from the Web and store them on my computer. It would be convenient if I could find what I am looking for quickly and easily.

I have tried to organise these files in folders and give each one a name that helps me identify what is in it, but it is getting far too complicated now. I have thousands of files and a name that seemed to make sense a year or two ago means nothing to me today.

I know enough to manage my computer but I am hardly a computer boffin. I need a solution that will be easy to install and use.

Just to make things a little more difficult, I need to be able to handle a few European languages as well as Chinese. Can you suggest something?

Name and address supplied

This is a fortuitous time to be asking such a question because there are several solutions available or soon to be released.

There are three ways to approach such a problem: get a search tool and search your own hard disks; get a small program that will organise everything or buy a database that can handle large amounts of text.

By far the easiest solution would be to keep putting your files in folders and then do searches on them. Google recently launched Google Desktop to do that.

You know how easy it is to use Google to do internet-based searches? Well, now they are promoting a desktop version of that. It is still early days, but you can try it for free. It could well be exactly what you are looking for.

Unfortunately, it only runs on Windows for now. It may be ported to Mac and possibly Linux, but that is not a certainty.

If you use Mac, you could wait a few months until Apple's new version of its OSX software comes out. Code-named Tiger, it is supposed to include Spotlight, a search tool with similar capabilities as the Google Desktop.

There is a lot of talk about this and Apple has been promoting it with considerable gusto.

This is certainly something to look forward to.

There are a few possibilities for small, text-specific databases on the Windows platform. Microsoft has OneNote, an application aimed at organising this kind of data and keeping notes.

Another simple database is AskSam. This is specifically aimed at organising large amounts of text. Both companies claim the software is easy to use, but that is something you can only judge by using the product.

Finally, you could get a serious database product such as FileMaker Pro if you think you need it.

Of all the big databases, it is the easiest to use and it has the advantage of working on Windows and Mac, but you will have to do a lot of work to get it all organised. You will have to do a great deal of copying and pasting to get the data into the database. You will also lose most of the formatting.

My suggestion is to go with Google if you are on a PC and wait for Tiger if you are on a Mac.

The Tiger solution should not have a problem with Chinese because the OS is Unicode-compliant. Google should be all right but it has not been tested.

The Google link:

http://desktop.google.com/

Apple's Spotlight: www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/spotlight.html

Microsoft's OneNote:

http://office.microsoft.com/onenote

AskSam: www.asksam.com/

FileMaker Pro:  www.filemaker.com/



Ways to organise files so they can be found