I Swear I Am Ghana Do This Right

It is relatively simple to create and search PDF files on my Mac.

Last night, though, I was up figuring out how to do the same on my iPhone.

Soon, when I am sitting out in the sunshine, I will be able to search, for example, all 195 countries’ Wikipedia articles about Coats of Arms for the word sword.

I will be able to view the pictures of swords in each Coat of Arms right there on the same page.

BTW, by checking out the Wikipedia page, Coats of Arms by Charge, I learned that there are 20 countries that have swords in their coats of arms.

Those are the countries’ articles I have begun to acquire. I just timed it. To add a new country’s PDF article — without rushing — took me just under three minutes.

Since I already have indexed eight articles, I figure the remaining 12 countries’ articles showing swords will take me 36 minutes.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Google the Wikipedia article (e.g., Coats of Arms of Ghana), and open it
2. Choose Open in Safari
3. Choose Save PDF to iBooks
4. Email the PDF from iBooks to my Gmail
5. Click on (open) the PDF attachment in the Gmail
6. Choose Save to Dropbox
7. Highlight the title, and type in my own title (GHANA)
8. Choose Folder (Coats of Arms), and choose SAVE and DONE
9. Check Dropbox to verify that the title GHANA is there
10. Open the PDF Pro APP ($2.95 at the App Store)
11. Click on the + sign, then on Add PDFs from your Dropbox
12. Click on GHANA, and then on DONE
13. See all your saved PDFs, then click on the search symbol (magnifying glass)
14. In the search bar type sword
15. See all the matches found, and click on each to read about the swords

Okay. But what will I do with the information about my 20 countries’ swords?

I will learn about the different types of swords, and how they were used in history.

For example, I already have read about the ceremonial sword of Ghana, about the Tuareg sword of Niger that was worn by these famous camel riders of North Africa, and about how the Panamanians chose to depict a hung sword and gun to represent the abandonment, for always, to their civil wars. And after swords? How about birds? Or plants? Or dragons?

Mr. Ebsen may be contacted at robertebsen51@gmail.com