Devonian Times Masthead

The DEVONtechnologies Blog

Articles in the category Tips

December 1, 2020

How to Use DEVONthink's Help

Screenshot of the DEVONthink help window

DEVONthink is a very full featured and capable application, and as such requires good documentation. Given the necessary amount of information in the help, it may seem difficult to find answers in it. Here’s how the help was written to make it easier to navigate. (more)

November 17, 2020

How to Check Cloud Service Status

Screenshot of the Apple system status page

Many people use compatible cloud services for syncing DEVONthink and DEVONthink To Go. These can be useful in situations where devices need to be updated more frequently, or Bonjour connections are disallowed. However, just as any website can be unavailable, for a variety of reasons, these servers can experience downtime as well. Here are some official links to some of the services you might use, not only for syncing but just about any of your cloud storage needs. (more)

November 10, 2020

How to Organize with Smart Rules

Groups of web clippings

One of the powerful new features in DEVONthink is smart rules. An extension of smart groups, they allow you to act on the matched item when certain events happen. Since capturing web content to DEVONthink is a common task, here’s an example to show how to use smart rules to dynamically organize web clippings. (more)

November 3, 2020

How to Get Help with Our Apps

Screenshot showing the DEVONthink Help menu

In software as in life, things unexpectedly go wrong. Sometimes you can resolve things alone and sometimes you need help. For those times when you need assistance with our applications, here’s how to get help. (more)

October 27, 2020

How to Filter Items in DEVONthink

DEVONthink showing map filter pane.

No matter if you’re a casual or heavy user of DEVONthink, your databases fill up with a variety of files over time. The more items, the more you have to search and sort through. While the toolbar search is one powerful option for finding items, here is another way: filter panes. (more)

October 20, 2020

How to Add Some Style to Markdown

Markdown styled in DEVONthink.

Markdown is a plain text file format that has become more popular in some circles outside web work. Markdown allows you to write and add formatting with simple, plain text characters. However, the appearance may be a bit plain for some tastes. Here’s how you can change it. (more)

October 13, 2020

How to Customize Bookends Import

Importing Bookends references into DEVONthink.

If you are using the Pro or Server editions of DEVONthink, you can import references from the popular bibliographic manager Bookends. Here’s how you can customize the format of the imported references in DEVONthink. (more)

October 6, 2020

How to Simulate Three Pane View

DEVONthink 3 simulating Three Pane View.

In version 2 of DEVONthink, there was a view also found in some high-end management or information systems: Three Pane View. This view had a pane displaying only groups and their subgroups, one pane only showing enclosing documents, and a preview pane. This view is not available in DEVONthink 3. However, here are some options to approximate the view in version 3. (more)

September 29, 2020

How to Put Drag-and-Drop to Best Use

Dragging a thumbnail out of the PDF thumbnails list.

People new to Macs, especially Windows converts, often have questions about how to get data into DEVONthink. While there are a variety of methods we outline in the In & Out chapter of the help, one option is a long-standing Mac feature that makes this simple: drag-and-drop. (more)

September 22, 2020

How to not forget what's important

Many times we need to schedule a reminder about something we need to revisit. This may be something you need to defer until a later date or perhaps some documents you need to be done and sent out next Friday. DEVONthink provides two simple ways to set such a reminder. (more)