The debate of using folders versus tags for document organization has been a topic of discussion for years. While some people prefer the traditional method of organizing documents in folders, others swear by the flexibility and adaptability of tags. And while the answer can often come down to personal preference, there are some clear benefits of using tags that can make managing documents simpler, streamlined and more collaborative.

Let’s explore some clever ways that using tags can help you to find your documents more easily, to streamline the delivery of projects, to collaborate more seamlessly and to organize documents in a way that is scalable and dynamic.

‍But firstly, what is the difference between tags and folders? 

Folders are a hierarchical structure. You can put a document in a folder and that folder can live inside another folder which can live inside another folder and so on. Importantly, each document can only exist in one folder at a time. Folders can become cumbersome and difficult to navigate as the number of documents increases. Need to find a specific document or folder that was created 3 years ago? You’ll likely need to remember the exact name of the document or folder in order to find it. 

Tags on the other hand (sometimes referred to as labels) are descriptors that you can attach to a document. Let’s say you tag a document with “admin”, when you search the tag ‘admin’, you will find that document as well as all other documents with the same tag. 

Unlike with folders, a tagging structure enables you to attribute multiple descriptors to the same document. This can make finding documents a lot easier and makes the breadth of how you manage your documents much broader than with folders.

Using tags enables a more fluid and dynamic approach to document organization. As your needs change, you can easily add, modify or remove tags, without having to move documents around or duplicate them. You can create new tags, update existing ones, or remove tags that are no longer relevant. Reduce time spent searching for files and get things done faster.

Drawboard PDF offers a simple and collaborative solution for PDF markup, editing and storage. With Drawboard PDF, tagging can not only help you to find your documents easily, it can enable you and your team to manage documents and projects more effectively.

‍So what are some of the ways that you can use tags to work more productively?

Use descriptive tags:

‍Make sure that your tags accurately describe the content of the document so that you can quickly search for and find the document when you need it.

Use multiple tags:

‍You can use multiple tags to categorize documents in different ways. For example, you could tag a document with the name of the project it relates to, the type of document it is (e.g. report, memo, email), and the author's name.

Use tag hierarchies: ‍

You can create hierarchies of tags to create a more organized structure. For example, you could have a top-level tag for "Projects," and then sub-tags for each individual project.

Use tags for collaboration:

If you are collaborating with others, you can use tags to indicate who is responsible for each document or which documents require input from specific team members.

Use tags to track progress: ‍

You can use tags to track the progress of a project or a document. For example, you could use a "To Do" tag for documents that still require action, and a "Done" tag for documents that have been completed.

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