Devonian Times Masthead

The DEVONtechnologies Blog

Articles in the category Tips

Use Plain Text Instead of Proprietary Formats

November 29, 2016

Applications like Apple Pages, the venerable Microsoft Word, and similar word processing applications may be full of features, but they are also locking your data up in formats that can only be read by those apps. A great alternative is plain text. (more)

DEVONthink's Synchronization and Network Security

November 22, 2016

When it comes to network safety, many corporations and individuals turn to firewalls and network monitoring applications to control what’s happening. This can keep intrusions at bay, or at least make the life of a potential intruder a bit more difficult. However, these methods can also cause DEVONthink’s synchronization engine to seemingly fail, especially with Bonjour connections. (more)

What the Properties Pane is Useful For

November 15, 2016

A question pertaining to the Properties pane recently came up on our forums. This can be found in DEVONthink with the menu command Tools > Show Properties. It seems to imply it’s a place where you can add things like comments, keywords, authors, etc. to any file. However, this is not true. The Properties pane allows you to view and edit the metadata supported by the file, but does not let you add data to the file which is not supported by the file’s structure. (more)

Clip To DEVONthink — in DEVONthink

October 12, 2016

Many people use the DEVONthink browser extensions to clip information from web pages into their DEVONthink databases. We have extensions (or add-ons, different name but the same thing) for Safari, Google Chrome, and Firefox. (more)

Convert E-Books to PDF

October 5, 2016

ePub and Mobi (the Kindle format) are solid file formats for electronic books. But they are harder to handle than, e.g., PDF or plain text as they are designed for reading on an ebook reader. They are not really suited for using them inside other applications or for long-term archiving. (more)

Use Clip To DEVONthink with Opera

May 3, 2016

For those of you who are using the Opera browser for your web searching, it is possible to add our Clip to DEVONthink extension to it. We don’t have an Opera-specific version but with an Opera add-on, you can use the Chrome extension. (more)

Switching from MacJournal

April 26, 2016

We had a MacJournal user contact us, wanting to switch to DEVONthink. While we have no control over how easy or hard this may be, we took a look at what options there are. Nicely, the MacJournal folks have simple but useful export options (we always applaud when developers resist the urge to lock in someone’s data). (more)

Computers and Your Eyes

April 19, 2016

Today it’s normal for most people to stare at computer screens all day long, something that was unbelievable just 25 years ago. Whether we’re shopping online, chatting and tweeting, or working in our DEVONthink databases, we spend a lot of time in the light of our screens. If you are experiencing headaches, blurred vision, watery eyes, or have trouble getting to sleep, here are a few simple tips for you. (more)

Local Database Favorites

April 12, 2016

DEVONthink’s sidebar allows you to keep your favorite databases always at hand. If you want to have something similar inside a database you can easily set it up yourself like this:

Alternatively you can use tags: … (more)

Note to Self …

February 9, 2016

During the course of the day we often have a need to jot down a quick note in a database. Maybe it’s details on a customer inquiry, the idea for your next great invention, or a reminder to get milk on the way home (and yes, you can put little things like this in DEVONthink too, if you’d like). (more)