How to Paste Text with a Source Link

When doing research and taking notes, it is often helpful to link to specific parts of text in documents, especially PDFs. DEVONthink has two special copy and paste commands that make such linking very fast and effective.

Select some text from a PDF document stored in your databases, e.g., DEVONthink’s user handbook.

• For use inside DEVONthink: Choose Edit > Copy or press ⌘C as you normally would. Then select a rich text, Markdown, formatted note, or an HTML document in your database to edit. Choose Edit > Paste with Source Link or press ⇧⌘V.
• For use outside DEVONthink: Choose Edit > Copy with Source Link or press ⇧⌘C. Switch to a rich text document in TextEdit. Choose Edit > Paste or press ⌘V.

If you want to paste text into an external application, test whether the linked text will paste properly. Apps using formats based on rich text, HTML, or Markdown should usually work. Plain text itself not not support live hyperlinks but discerning readers may notice that it works nevertheless in some applications!