About Tags and Collections
Tags and collections are how you organise the library. They do not copy a document. They point at documents you already have.
A tag is a label. A collection is a group. You can use both on the same document. See Core Ideas for the short definitions.
Tags
A tag belongs to you. Other people do not see your tag list on their documents.
A tag has a path. You write the path with slashes. Each segment is one level. The first time you create a path, the service keeps the casing you typed for display. Lookup is not case sensitive, so the same path is one tag.
You attach tags to documents. You can also attach tags to collections. A document can have many tags. You can remove a tag from a document without deleting the tag itself.
In the document library, you can filter by tag. You can also search documents by name. Tags answer "what kind of thing is this." They do not answer "which set does this belong to." That is the job of a collection.
Collections
A collection is a named group of documents you own. You create it, give it a name, and optionally add a description. You can edit the name and description later.
You add a document you own to a collection. You can also remove it. The same document can sit in more than one collection. Membership is not exclusive.
Deleting a playlist collection removes the group. It does not delete the documents inside it.
You add documents to a collection from the document, or from the library. An empty collection tells you to add documents from the document view.
Collection kind
Every collection has a kind.
A playlist is the usual kind. You create it by name. You add documents in any mix. Order is not the main idea. The documents stay independent.
A book is another kind. A book collection can hold a source file. You can split that source into chapter documents. After the split, the collection lists those documents in order, grouped as front matter, chapters, and appendix items. You can then parse each chapter.
Deleting a book collection removes the book and its chapters. That is different from a playlist.
When you create a collection yourself from the collections area, you get a playlist. A book is a specialised kind for a source that splits into chapters.
How tags and collections differ
Use a tag when the same label should apply across many documents, including documents that do not share a group. Use a collection when you want a named set you can open as a list.
Examples:
- A tag such as
research/energycan sit on papers that also live in different collections. - A collection named "Q3 reading" can hold papers that also have different tags.
A collection can have tags of its own. Those tags describe the group, not each member.
Limits of organisation
Tags and collections are for documents you own. Shared documents appear in the shared list. Public documents from other people appear in the public list. You do not put those into your collections.
Organisation does not change parse state. A tagged document can still be unparsed. A document in a collection can still fail parse.