Recently we have posted a tip abouthow to quickly create a table of contents). However, sometimes it’s necessary to update a table of contents manually. This short screen movie shows how it works. (mehr)

Writing copy text that’s easy to read is, well, not easy. Especially Germans like me tend to build long nested sentences. Fortunately there are simple mechanical tools like, e.g., the Automated Readability Index. It counts the sentences, words, and letters in a text and returns an estimate on how difficult it is to read. The number it spits out correlates roughly to the US grade level. (mehr)

DEVONthink and DEVONnote users tend to collect and organize excessively. This leads, inevitably, to databases with large amounts of items. A table of contents helps you stay ahead of the ever-growing pile. Select the documents for which you want to create a table of contents, then choose Data > Create Table of Contents. The application builds a nicely arranged rich text for you with links to all the other documents. (mehr)

Here’s a quick tip that is simple, but probably not so obvious. When you select Tools > Search or press Command-Shift-F in DEVONthink, it brings up the powerful Search window. Use the menu command or press the shortcut again and DEVONthink will open another search window. You can keep the results of one search while you start another, and another, … You can keep as many search windows open as you can mentally manage.

DEVONthink Pro (Office) lets you save files directly to the database using the watched Inbox folder. This folder is deeply buried in your Library folder but added to the Finder sidebar for easy access. It also appears in Open and Save dialog windows. (mehr)

When importing email, Apple Mail is going to provide the best performance as it supports native plugins. Other email applications require the use of Applescript to interact with DEVONthink and we can’t guarantee the performance, especially with large mailboxes. But if your email client supports an export to the UNIX .mbox format you can drag the exported .mbox file to the DEVONthink Pro Office dock icon to scan it for messages. (mehr)

If you are working at lot with PDF annotations the Mac application Highlights is for you. You can use it not only to manipulate annotations but also to extract annotations from documents and send them directly to DEVONthink Pro (Office). In addition it offers plenty of more export options including sharing annotations by email and saving them as Markdown. (mehr)

XMenu’s user-defined menu allows you to build you very own menu extra menu. You just have to add your own documents, apps, or scripts to its Custom folder. In XMenu’s Preferences first check the User-Defined option to make the menu appear. Right-click this menu, which appears with a gear icon, to quickly show its folder. It is always named Custom. Add and remove files to or from this folder to customize the menu’s content to your needs. (mehr)

The name of your DEVONthink databases doesn’t really matter. While it matters to you in terms of helping you to identify what is in it, the real identity of the database is found in its UUID (universally unique identifier). You can think of it like your social security number (in the US) or your passport number. You could change your name, appearance, location, etc. but this number always represents me. (mehr)

We often have users asking this question: “I have a shortcut to the Global Inbox in the Finder’s sidebar. How do I get a similar shortcut to my other databases’ inboxes or groups?” The answer is, unfortunately, “You can’t, at least not easily”. (mehr)