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Page Reorganization

💡MarginNote lets you move document content into a virtual document with a drag gesture, enabling page-level "splitting and reorganization" of your documents.

With a few simple drags, you can gather pages from multiple books into a single document and export it as review material.

You can also collect a single problem type from years of exam papers into one document for review.

The document on the right is a reorganization of a textbook document and an exercise-set document The document on the right is a reorganization of a textbook document and an exercise-set document

1 Virtual Documents and Page Reorganization

A virtual document does not change the storage location or content of the original files; it is simply a collection that brings together content from different sources and different pages. You can think of it as a "virtual bookshelf" holding the pages or content you have selected from various documents. These items are not physically moved in storage, yet in MarginNote they can be used as a single, unified whole.

In MN, every newly created document is a virtual document, including page-reorganization documents, newly created blank notebooks, auxiliary notebooks, and so on. They are managed in the same way as imported documents; see Importing Documents and Document Management

💡Page reorganization does not copy files; instead it "references" the pages of the original file, so you must keep the original file.

As long as you do not delete the original document, neither of the two virtual page-reorganization methods (append / create new) will affect the source document or its note data.

1.1 Preparation: Enabling the Tab Bar

Document - More

Show Document Tabs

  • Tap Document - More (1)
  • Turn on Show Document Tabs, or use the keyboard shortcut ↑+H (2)
  • Open the tab bar at the top of the document interface (3).

1.2 Content That Can Be Added to a Virtual Document

In MarginNote 4, both The Hand Tool Pop-up Menu Bar and Its Customization (such as text and images) and Retrieval ②: Viewing the Document's Table of Contents / Thumbnails / Bookmarks / Handwritten Annotations / Cards (such as the table of contents, thumbnails, bookmarks, annotations, and cards) can be reorganized into a "virtual document", and changes to the original content can be synced into that document.

2 Ways to Reorganize Pages

2.1 Reorganizing by Table of Contents

2.1.1 Create New: Creating a New Virtual Document

💡A newly created virtual document does not include the excerpts and annotations from the original document; for details, see: Content Synchronization Comparison Before and After Reorganization

Page Search

Table of Contents

  • Open the Table of Contents view (as shown by the icon above), then long-press and drag the table of contents item you want; a blue New button appears on the right side of the document tab bar.
  • Drag the table of contents item onto the blue New button in the tab bar and release to automatically create a new virtual document.

💡In the Table of Contents view, if you only long-press without dragging, only the Edit Table of Contents menu pops up and the New button does not appear.

Animated demo: Creating a new virtual document from the table of contents Animated demo: Creating a new virtual document from the table of contents

2.1.2 Append: Adding Pages to the End of a Target Document

Page Search

Table of Contents

  • Open the Table of Contents and long-press to select a table of contents item
  • Drag the content onto another document in the tab bar and release to add all the pages contained in that table of contents item directly to that document

💡An appended virtual document includes the excerpts and annotations from the original document but does not include collapses or extend notes.

Its excerpts are displayed in sync across both documents, but annotations are not synced.

For details, see: Content Synchronization Comparison Before and After Reorganization

2.1.3 Batch-Adding Multiple Table of Contents Items to a Virtual Document

💡Multi-selection and dragging are only available in the full-screen Table of Contents window of the document interface.

  • Tap the Edit button at the bottom right of the Table of Contents view and select multiple table of contents items at once
  • Batch-drag them onto the blue New button or a document tab in the tab bar

Animated demo: Batch-adding multiple table of contents items to a virtual document Animated demo: Batch-adding multiple table of contents items to a virtual document

2.2 Reorganizing by Thumbnails / Bookmarks / Annotations

Thumbnails

Bookmarks

Annotations

  • In the Thumbnails / Bookmarks / Annotations view (as shown above), long-press the page you want to reorganize
  • Drag it onto another document or the New button in the tab bar

2.3 Reorganizing by Hand Tool Selection

Hand Tool - Document

  • Use the hand tool to select the text or area you want on a document page
  • Drag it to the tab bar to reorganize the pages (append / create new)

Animated demo: Reorganizing pages by hand tool selection Animated demo: Reorganizing pages by hand tool selection

2.4 Reorganizing Between Documents

If you want to virtually merge documents, you can drag a document tab directly onto another document tab; this appends all pages of Document A to the end of Document B.

Animated demo: Reorganizing between documents Animated demo: Reorganizing between documents

3 Content Synchronization Comparison Before and After Reorganization

Type New virtual document from Table of Contents Append to virtual document from Table of Contents New virtual document from selection Append to virtual document from selection
Original pages ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Excerpts ✗ ✓ ✓ ✓
Annotations ✗ ✓ ✓ ✓
Collapse ✗ ✗ ✓ ✓
Extend note ✗ ✗ ✓ ✓