Research NotesTime for some serious Internet research
A free Chrome browser extension that helps you organize web pages and PDFs: add notes and tags, highlight and save quotes, sift through Google search results.
Research Notes
Research NotesA free Chrome browser extension that helps you organize web pages and PDFs: add notes and tags, highlight and save quotes, sift through Google search results.
A free Chrome browser extension that helps you organize web pages and PDFs: add notes and tags, highlight and save quotes, sift through Google search results.
You can later search from all notes across all topics.
Multiple additions to the all notes -page.
First off, tags filter will show the tags count in the dataset. This is useful for cases, where the tags frequency gives a meaningful overview of the research process or perhaps when tags are used as a funnel - e.g. "contacted", "further contact", "result - rejected", "result - accepted".
There are new options in list view to order pages by creation date - either recently created or oldest created on top. This lets you keep the pages in order these were first saved, whereas the previously existing "recently updated" order always brings last updated pages to top.
Creation date is also added to the table view as a new column:
In addition, table view gets the option to configure which columns are shown and in which order:
Also, under the hood a new analytics provider will be used.
Click to see history of previous releases...Install the extension at the Chrome Web Store:
FAQ - How do I use it?
You can add your thoughts and info about pages or PDF documents opened in Chrome.
RN icon next to the address bar. A Research Notes popup window opens.
Delete page data button to remove page data from your records.
bookmark the page and it will show up in the Research Notes bookmarks folder under chosen topic;
cross the page to mark it as processed or deemed unuseful - this let's you hide the page also from Google search results and all notes -page; Delete page data button erases any info you’ve added with Research Notes about this page.
Note: the popup window can also be opened by a keyboard combination - by default it is Ctrl+Shift+F or in Mac Command+Shift+F, but this can be changed in Chrome menu -> More tools -> Extensions -> click on the three layers up left -> Keyboard shortcuts.
By default the saved page is automatically also bookmarked. This can be changed in the extension Options menu:
In addition to regular tagging you can also assign values to page tags. Just use colon in the tag to indicate that it has a value attached to it.
For example, to record a page’s author, add a tag like Author: (author’s name).
Or, when searching for products and comparing good websites with alternative offerings, use tags such as product: (maker and model) or price: (price in some currency).
Having once entered the value tag (author in pictured case), it is displayed on its own so you can enter just the value part on next topic's pages.
You can later view your pages with tags on an all notes -page as a list or table.
In table view the value tags appear as sortable columns, for example with authors:
Save quotes from pages and highlight these.
First, select text on the page. From here you have number of ways to save a quote:
Note: this hovering popup is disabled by default, but can be enabled in extension Options menu.
The quote is highlighted on the page.
Quotes also appear in the page’s RN popup window, ready to be copied with the source address.
Here you can also add notes to each quote.
You can save images from webpages or add other images to page notes.
When studying a topic in-depth, save searches to remember what search terms you’ve used, which ones got great results and how far into the results you have looked.
On a tab, where Google or Google Scholar search page is open, click the RN icon next to the address bar. If needed, choose the right topic from the drop-down list or create a new one.
Press the Save searches button.
Research Notes search panel appears on top of the search page, detailing your topic’s saved searches. For each search term you can also add notes and view search statistics(Last - last time search term was used, F – furthest Google page seen, R – numeber of results retrieved, C – number of results clicked / opened, ★ – bookmarked pages, ⛝ - crossed pages, N - pages with notes, T – tagged pages, Q – pages with quotes).
Under each search result Research Notes adds buttons so you can bookmark, cross, add notes or tags to pages on the fly.
button or click the RN icon next to the address bar and press the Stop saving searches button.After taking notes, see them all on the all notes -page.
Click the 
Open all notes -button (visible in the Research Notes popup window or RN search panel) or right-clicking the RN icon next to the address bar and select Open all notes.
Alternatively, open the page via keyboard shortcut: by default it's Ctrl+Shift+S or in Mac Command+Shift+S, but this can be changed in Chrome menu -> More tools -> Extensions -> click on the three layers up left -> Keyboard shortcuts.
The all notes -page is opened in a new tab, displaying all your saved topics, searches and pages. There you can filter pages by text, tags, notes or bookmarks.
You can view your pages either in a list view:
...or table view:
On the all notes -page you can edit everything about your pages - tags, notes, quotes, bookmark or cross, page title or URL.
List view:
All page fields are open to editing. Once done, click Save changes.
Table view:
Click on any field to edit. Once done, click Save.
The information that you save with the extension - page addresses, searches, notes, tags, etc - is stored exclusively in your browser and is not shared with anyone. We only collect anonymous analytics statistics to get an overview about how (which features) this product is used.
On installing the extension in Chrome Web Store, a notification informs about permissions granted to the extension. These permissions are needed for the extension to work properly:
Questions or feedback? E-mail us: feedback(at)onlineresearchnotes.com.