Backing Up a collection

How to Back up a Collection.

This can be useful if you have numerous collections bulking up the list. This can be a way to preserve seldom used collections and make the Collection list easier to navigate and focused on the important collections.

You also can “back up” or clone any Static (Standard) Collection by storing a Collection's list of documents (actually the shortcuts to those documents) in a file’s Document Bookmarks. This can be done for a Dynamic Collection as well, but only represents the Dynamic Collections information (shortcuts) at the point of time the list is copied.

This can be useful if you have numerous collections bulking up the list. This can be a way to preserve seldom used collections and make the Collection list easier to navigate and focused on the important collections.

Follow these steps:

1. Create a new blank file in the binder to store your collection list results. Give it a name to remind you of the chosen Collection. Ideally, keep these stored collection lists in a single special folder so it is easy to find. Perhaps tucked inside your Research folder.

2. Open the new blank file and click on the Inspector and open the Inspector’s Bookmark tab. This should be set to Document Bookmarks not Project Bookmarks. (The Keyboard Shortcut will switch Project Bookmarks to Document Bookmarks or vice versa.) You can click the small caret to move between Bookmark types as well. (see below)

3. Lock the file in place in the editor. (Navigate> Lock in Place)

4. Open any Static or Dynamic Collection you wish to save. Remember for Dynamic Collections you are capturing the results at the current point of time and this will not update on its own. (This saved information can later be added to a new Static Collection but not a Dynamic Collection.)

5. Select every item in the collection using the Keyboard Command (Ctrl + A) or only select certain results you wish to save. Now drag these highlighted search results into the blank file’s Inspector’s Document Bookmarks pane. You have created a list of Bookmark shortcuts which function in the same manner as those in any collection.

6. To restore the previous collection again (Static ONLY). Create a new blank Static Collection using the + sign in the Collections header. Choose all the bookmarks or just the few you want and drag them into the empty collection pane.

Figure 1: Backing up collection results to a file’s Document Bookmarks.

Figure 2: Taking saved collection links in the Document Bookmarks and now moving a copy of the links into a new collection to recreate the old one.

Backing up Facts:

1. Just like any Static Collection, editing this list of Document Bookmarks has no effect on the original files/folders.

2. In this way, you preserve important Collections and declutter the Collections list which only displays a fixed number of Collections above the Binder section.

3. The restored Collection will be a Static one only.

Previous
Previous

Using Collections a Deep Dive

Next
Next

dynamic collections: a deep dive