PK Tip: Using the Compact Command for Maintenance and Repair

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:

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.

Personal Knowbase Stay-at-Home Project Ideas

Many of us are finding unstructured time on our hands while on lockdown, quarantine, or shelter in place. Our last post outlined general productivity tips to help cope during "Shelter in Place".

If you decide to use your self-isolation time to start a project (or make progress on a previously languishing project), create a Personal Knowbase data file for it and collect all its notes in one place. Personal Knowbase's freeform note management system can help with organizing the related notes, research, and records. Use it to keep track of related website accounts and online resources. Attach related files to the corresponding PK articles.

PK Tip: Avoiding Changing a Data File

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.

Running PK Reader from a CD

Personal Knowbase Reader is a read-only viewer for files which are created using the Personal Knowbase note management software. You can set up PK Reader to run from a write-once removable disk, such as a CD-R, so that it automatically loads a Knowbase data file.

Computer Basics: How to Create a Shortcut on Your Desktop

If you have a file or program that you access constantly, you may find it useful to have a shortcut to it right on your Windows desktop.

PK Tip: Splitting Data Files

You can split a Personal Knowbase data file using the Export command (from the File menu):

Converting from Cardfile to Personal Knowbase

Recent versions of Windows (starting with Windows 7) don't include distribution of the Windows Cardfile utility. Since Microsoft stopped support for Win XP, more and more people are looking for new ways to access their old Cardfile files.

PK Tip: Combining Data Files

You can combine two Personal Knowbase data files using the Import command (from the File menu):

SquareNote Custom Import Format

Personal Knowbase can not import SquareNote files directly. However, it has a feature called "custom import formats" that allows you to define a format for importing text files. We have created such a "custom import format" for importing notes exported from SquareNote.