iTunes may be used to effectively manage PDF documents, a group of radiologists in China has asserted. The recommendations constitute another facet in which modern technologies are facilitating medical communications.

iTunes may be used to effectively manage PDF documents, a group of radiologists in China has asserted.[1]

The recommendations constitute another facet in which modern technologies are facilitating medical media and communications; for example, podcasting is already widely used in clinical education.

They noted that there is currently "a lack of powerful software" for this purpose, adding: "One of the hidden powers of iTunes is its ability to manage and organize PDF documents just as conveniently as music files."

Furthermore, they added, rather than saving resources to its library, iTunes indexes the location and description of each file. This enables rapid searches.

The authors suggested that users edit the file information to allow for more effective cross-referencing. For example, author names could be filled in under 'artist', and categories such as neuroimaging under 'grouping'.

They concluded: "iTunes provides a unique way for us to manage electronic files. It has powerful search and sort functions, it can remember a user's favourite articles, it supports customized shortcuts for different topics or categories, and the backup of these shortcuts can be easily achieved.

"We no longer need to keep PDF files in redundant folders."

[1] 'An easy and effective approach to manage radiologic portable document format (PDF) files using iTunes'. AJR 2008; 191: 290-291