Topic: Is there a program that lets you put text/notes with images? (Not embedded tags)

[JonLeung]

Hyper-specific question: does anyone know of any Windows software that lets you have text/notes alongside an image?

I don't mean image captioning in the usual sense.  When it comes to putting keywords/tags/captions in JPEG metadata, I know there're already lots of programs like that, including Windows Explorer.

I'm really envisioning something more like, in a hypothetical program, I would load up a folder, and can then view its images one-at-a-time on one side of the screen, maybe navigate through them with some arrow keys or something.  Then on the other side, a space where I can write text that would be specific to that image.  (I would imagine it would auto-save it as a text file in a specific folder, with the same name as the associated image file).  Then anytime I load up that image in that program, I can see the associated text.  I don't want the text to be embedded in the images at all, just seeing the text only through that program (or I suppose looking at them as text files if I navigate to that program's folder).  The point is that the original image files would not be altered in any way, but I can have notes about them.

(I seem to recall, like over a decade ago, something like that actually existing, but I don't remember the name, and it's really hard to search for, since all I get are references to captions/tags in metadata.)

Does anything like that exist now?

[JonLeung]

Ah, I think I found it.  It's called "img-txt_viewer".  It works exactly as I imagined.

https://civitai.com/articles/1952/img-txtviewer-quick-and-easy-manual-captioning

It makes text files in the same folder as the images itself, which could get messy, not sure yet if there's an option to change that, but otherwise, it's great!

EDIT: Maybe it's still meant for tagging because you have to go into Options and uncheck "Cleaning Text on Save" to be able to allow capital letters.
And it handles commas like tag separations, rather than for prose.  Hmmm.  So close.

...

I know I'm just talking to myself here, but I'll keep this topic here in case someone else is looking for something just like this.

[JonLeung]

The creator, ImJohnJohn, heard my suggestions and actually implemented them!

In the v1.91 version that he released today, the big things are that the text cleanup doesn't convert everything to lower-case, newline characters (like with Enter keys) aren't turned into commas, and you can right-click on the "Browse..." button to select a path to a different folder for the text files (so that it doesn't clutter the folder of images).

I chose to uncheck "Cleaning Text on Save" and checked on "Auto-save", and it remembers these options now.

I know the original purpose was for tagging images with keywords, but I think it's incredibly useful now with the intent of writing larger descriptions about images without having to alter the image files directly or having text files crowd up the folder.

It's nice to be heard and to feel like I've contributed to a new tool that's useful (even if it's, or especially, for my specific needs).

[JonLeung]

As of a few days ago, with the update to v1.92, it now has .GIF support and a thumbnail grid.  Upon opening, it can also auto-load the text file folder if an alternate folder had been specified.

Thanks again to ImJohnJohn for implementing those changes that I suggested!

Maybe no one cares but me, but as I previously said, it's nice to feel heard, and to contribute ideas that actually go into something.  If anyone else needs this image/text association program, maybe a Google search will bring them to this topic and point them in the right direction.  So, anyone in the future reading this... you're welcome.