Forum Discussion
What's the purpose of collections when you have bookmarks?
If you find something interesting on web, you could just bookmark it, I don't for what purpose collections could be used [also collections don't work offline] . For what purposes do you guys use collections?
Hi there,
Collections simplifies several common tasks, such as highlighting important sections of an article for later reference. You can add text to the collection by highlighting it on the page and then dragging it into the collections pane. The same procedure works for images.
Collections can be exported to Excel or Word. This allows you to use the feature to jumpstart work on a research document, without having to copy, paste and alt-tab between Word and the browser.
Soon more export formats and destinations will be added.
Collections have lots of potentials, it's nowhere near finished, there are still so many features that need to be added to it, one of them is using collections offline, just like Reading List.
You can view more info here:
https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2019/08/20/collections-now-available-microsoft-edge-preview/
Also please take a look at these posts:
HotCakeX Is there a way I can highlight certain text and add markups on a webpage and add the whole page to "Collections" with my highlights and markups still on the page? Often times I want to highlight different sections of webpages and add markups or notes to the webpage or article, and want to add the webpage or article to "Collections" keeping all my highlights and markups and notes. Is there any way to do this?
- I'm using collections as Pinterest for everything. They are very helpful when you seek information for a certain task and when the job is done you can easily remove the collection. Bookmarks managing isn't so easy. Bookmarks work as site list, not as content snips.
ecto_ruseffI think of collections as temporary bookmarks for a specific purpose.
Yes you could put everything in bookmarks, but I like keeping temporary links (gift I want to buy for an upcoming birthday) separate from permanent bookmarks (Wikipedia). Plus collections can store images, highlighted text from a webpage, and notes, which is helpful when researching stuff on the web.
johnjansenMicrosoft
ecto_ruseff the most straight forward use I have for collections is research and compilation into a really easy to follow Word document. For example, I searched wikipedia for some data on halloween. I highlighted a paragraph and dragged it into a new collection. Then I found some candy on amazon and dragged it into the collection. I found some yelp comments on scary houses to visit, added them (not the page, mind you, just an image and an address). Then I looked up why we actually do haunted houses this time of year and added some of that. All good. I admit that it would have been just as easy to use Bookmarks. However, the next step is: I click the ... menu in Collections, and "Send to Word". That creates a well formatted document with footnotes containing the URLs I got my data from. I was able to save that to onedrive and send a link to my daughter. It was amazing.
She's going to use it for reports for school. She's very excited.
-John
ecto_ruseff it is there in Canary and Dev, it is good, the only issue is that it opens link in the current tab by default, that may be in use
- Yeah, I checked and if you press your Middle mouse button instead of the Left mouse button then it does open it in a new tab instead of the current one.
- Looks great but I don't like the idea how it opens & shrink the original window. I would like it better if it would popup like new favorites button or any other extension window, that would be much better.
- Another use case that it has for me is to create a shopping list of products from different online stores and put them all in one collection, then i can print them out in Word format and share it with others.
It would also be nice to have an embedded print screen tool, like Gyazo, for instance. To me, it's way easier to open a new snipped image directly in the browser, or to be saved in the collections. It could even create gifs.
I have recently been searching for this same question because I just started using Collections. I have a ton of Bookmarks and I am ok with them, but Collections is now easier for me. I am having a glitch I never had before with Bookmarks. When I go to add a link, it defaults to a folder I am not asked anymore to pick. I have tried looking at settings and whatnot but for now, Bookmarks are secondary to Collections. I like their layout too. The only bad thing about them is if I want to go to another browser and import pages there. I have been dumping Google and leaving as much of it as I can for MS so I doubt I will use another browser. FireFox is good, but like its old Netscape, it has an odd or convoluted setup of menus. That's me, I know folks love Firefox. So if this all made sense, it to me is a gravitation to Collections and I like what I see.
- Basically, collections are more site bookmarks. Once the light dawns, you can start shelving things again for your own desktop layout preferences in groupings or categories. As with offline so online with Edge Bing; instead of having just one location for folder items, variety of shelves provide what you store where with your own organizational clerical skills.
- Ok. Not sure I grasped the functional difference. I use collections in place of bookmarks. They function the same to me just different steps. I guess I need to dig in more on collections and what we can do. I love them. Downside is they don’t import anywhere. Nothing is like it outside of MS so I can’t port them if I move on.
I group bookmarks like I group collections. I’m missing a key function of collections then
Thanks for the note
- I was very keen and made extensive use of Collections. However Microsoft has mysteriously removed essential features like sorting collections (I numbered mine to create a sort order) and creating a new collection from a tab group. It has also
added a 'suggestion' feature that gives few useful suggestions for me and which others, like me, regard as pointless (see recent discussions). As seems typical, this annoyingly cannot be switched off other than by logging out and losing the sync facility.
