Any "short cuts" for the DevonThink Pro learning curve?

[jojoba]

I'm loving the potential of this app, but finding it a bit of a steep learning curve and I can't seem to locate any good tutorials. I'm using the Help Centre built into the app but it's not as informative as I would like it to be (or perhaps I'm just generally slow at this, IDK).

Another question I have is what 'level' it is strategic to put the data bases on. Is it smarter to have higher level data bases with lots of sub folders/groups, or to have more differentiated data bases? I'm not too concerned with disk space, I'm more concerned about how to maximise functionality.

I'm also wondering if anyone with the mac version have invested in the iPad app, and whether they found that to be worth the money. I've seen mixed reviews of that app.

[cloudTiger]

I'm in the same boat - I tried the trial for a few days and just yesterday purchased the full blown DevonThink Pro Office and a Fujitsu ScanSnap 1500m.

I've found the Devonthink Forums have pretty good and also the PDF manual - it's one of the few manuals I find myself reading page by page. The software is so powerful and customizable that there is no one-size fits all approach.

The best answer I found to the "How many databases?" question was to use separate databases for distinct separations of information that really don't bear any inter-relations. Also there appears to be a performance drop-off once a DB exceeds something like 200-300k entries and 200-300 million words (or something like that, it was a huge number), but DT can search multiple DBs nearly simultaneously.

I am thinking to expose some of my work DB using the built in webserver, so I've made separate DB's for:

* Personal Use
* Work Use to be shared
* Work Use confidential
* Personal projects like programming classwork
* A Literature library for manuals, reference materials

For me, the biggest question at hand is do I trust the database to store everything and be able to retrieve it from inside the database, or do I merely let DT index my folder structure and contents, or how to mix the both strategies.

Feel free to PM me any ideas you have or suggestions, but I think I'm going to start posting in the DT forums more than here.

But I agree, the potential of DT is there - it's just understanding how to make the best use out of it.

Cheers!

[sigamy]

There is a "Take Control of" eBook for DevonThink:

http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/devonthink-2

Also, Google for "devonthink screencast" and quite a few come up.

I'm going with one database and folders/groups within. I'm only scratching the surface of the app and I'm mainly want OCR and the automatic classification of documents. My main goal is to have all my vital documentation stored and easily accessible.

Haven't purchased iOS app yet. I've also read the negative reviews so I'm going to wait and see if they improve it. I don't have much need to have my tax returns, etc on my iPhone/iPad right now.

[flynz4]

Originally Posted by sigamy

There is a "Take Control of" eBook for DevonThink:

http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/devonthink-2

Also, Google for "devonthink screencast" and quite a few come up.

I'm going with one database and folders/groups within. I'm only scratching the surface of the app and I'm mainly want OCR and the automatic classification of documents. My main goal is to have all my vital documentation stored and easily accessible.

Haven't purchased iOS app yet. I've also read the negative reviews so I'm going to wait and see if they improve it. I don't have much need to have my tax returns, etc on my iPhone/iPad right now.

I was going to recommend the take control ebook mentioned, as well as a 2nd ebook by the same company, "Take control of your paperless office".

I have beeb using DTPO but I have not used too many advanced features. I keep everything in one database. My goal is to eliminate paper as soon as it enters the house. The mix of the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500M and DTPO does a great job for me. I scan items as the arrive, and then file them occasionally from the inbox into the various categories. I do have it set to OCR all scans, so finding documents in the database is nearly instantaneous. I love the "relevance bars" in the search engine.

I do have the iOS DT app as well, but I have not used it much. When I got it, you had to be pretty specific about what you shared. I did a few things that I might want when traveling such as a copy of my passport, and Nexus card, auto insurance cards... as well as a few other things.

/Jim

[jojoba]

Thanks, all! Nice to hear from others who are in the exploratory stage.

I'm kind of leaning towards this at the moment for DBs:

• academic
• personal
• photos

It seems that those areas were I wouldn't need IA to work across topics. I also read somewhere that more databases take up more disk space, but that's not really an issue for me at the moment.

This is a good point that I hadn't really thought about:

For me, the biggest question at hand is do I trust the database to store everything and be able to retrieve it from inside the database, or do I merely let DT index my folder structure and contents, or how to mix the both strategies.

Hm I'm going to have a little think about that. Let me know if you reach any insights on the issue. I haven't really figured out how to index stuff, either, so that's another point on my to do list.

There is a "Take Control of" eBook for DevonThink

I almost bought this when I purchased the app, but decided to wait and see. I've made a bit more headway since I posted the OP, found more of the in built tutorials and will have a look at the DT forums, too. I guess I mainly need a bit more patience So I'm going to give it a bit longer with the resources that are freely available and then reconsider. It seems such a powerful app, so I don't want to be missing out on its full potential. I absolutely LOVE that sorter tool already.

My goal is to eliminate paper as soon as it enters the house.

Ditto. Plus the office. I've been getting rid of all my research papers since I got my iPad. Such a relief.

Like Sigamy, I'm not sure how much I need the iPad version - but the iPad is the one electronic item that goes everywhere with me, so I'm leaning towards trying it out and having some 'back ups' there while travelling like flynz describes. But I already have my entire research library available through DropBox and iAnnotate/PDF Expert, so on the other hand perhaps I don't need a whole new app for that purpose. I'll see.

Thanks for the input, everyone! cT I might see you over in the other forum.

[flynz4]

Originally Posted by jojoba

Thanks, all! Nice to hear from others who are in the exploratory stage.

I'm kind of leaning towards this at the moment for DBs:

• academic
• personal
• photos

It seems that those areas were I wouldn't need IA to work across topics. I also read somewhere that more databases take up more disk space, but that's not really an issue for me at the moment. \

I would question "photos". DT is a great general purpose database that you can use for just about anything, but for very specific objects like music and photos, I think other "database" programs specific to those filetypes are better. For music I use iTunes, and for photos I use Aperture 3. Both do a great job for their intended purpose. A3 is a digital asset manager (i.e.: database) that is leaps and bounds above iPhoto.

/Jim

[jojoba]

Originally Posted by flynz4

I would question "photos". DT is a great general purpose database that you can use for just about anything, but for very specific objects like music and photos, I think other "database" programs specific to those filetypes are better. For music I use iTunes, and for photos I use Aperture 3. Both do a great job for their intended purpose. A3 is a digital asset manager (i.e.: database) that is leaps and bounds above iPhoto.

/Jim

Good point. I've only recently started taking photos again after a break of more than a decade, so I'm not very clued up. At the moment I have stuff on picasa web and want it away from the internet. I'll check out Aperture. Thanks!

[flynz4]

Originally Posted by jojoba

Good point. I've only recently started taking photos again after a break of more than a decade, so I'm not very clued up. At the moment I have stuff on picasa web and want it away from the internet. I'll check out Aperture. Thanks!

If you have a small photo library, then iPhoto is adequate. Aperture (or Lightroom if you prefer Adobe) really comes into play in organizing a large photo collection.

/Jim

[jojoba]

Originally Posted by flynz4

If you have a small photo library, then iPhoto is adequate. Aperture (or Lightroom if you prefer Adobe) really comes into play in organizing a large photo collection.

/Jim

Yes, I had a look at them, I´ll stick to iPhoto for now and then see how big it actually grows. Thanks!

[jojoba]

Having started to get used to this app a bit more, I just have to say I'm totally sold. I LOVE the ease with which I can file and organise stuff. It's wonderful. So happy I bought it now This is also another great tool in my quest towards a paperless office.

I've bought the iPad version, too, now, but haven't really checked it out yet.

[MathRulz]

Originally Posted by jojoba

Having started to get used to this app a bit more, I just have to say I'm totally sold. I LOVE the ease with which I can file and organise stuff. It's wonderful. So happy I bought it now This is also another great tool in my quest towards a paperless office.

I've bought the iPad version, too, now, but haven't really checked it out yet.

I have the 64g ipad, so space is not an issue for me. I have all my DTPO databases on my iPad. I also have all my research papers on my iPad in Sente in addition to DTPO. This allows me a lot of flexibility in how I use them. With DTPO on iPad, so far I have mostly used it for searching. With Sente iPad, I mostly read and annotate articles. I can easily email a reference with abstract from Sente after searching criteria in DTPO. This has come in handy several times in meetings with colleagues.

----------

Also, once I had a little familiarity with DTPO, I went through the Take Control book step by step with DTPO up and running at the same time. I think the author recommended that approach, and I found it very helpful.

[jojoba]

Originally Posted by MathRulz

I have the 64g ipad, so space is not an issue for me. I have all my DTPO databases on my iPad. I also have all my research papers on my iPad in Sente in addition to DTPO. This allows me a lot of flexibility in how I use them. With DTPO on iPad, so far I have mostly used it for searching. With Sente iPad, I mostly read and annotate articles. I can easily email a reference with abstract from Sente after searching criteria in DTPO. This has come in handy several times in meetings with colleagues.

----------

Also, once I had a little familiarity with DTPO, I went through the Take Control book step by step with DTPO up and running at the same time. I think the author recommended that approach, and I found it very helpful.

Thanks. I still haven't bought that book, but I will. I don't want to lose out on any hidden potential of this app.

I also carry my whole research library with me and I'm using iAnnotate and PDF Expert for reading and annotation. The iPad is great as an e-reader for academic texts.

I haven't quite decided whether to transfer my whole research library to DT or not. On the one hand, it makes sense. On the other hand, I now have a folder structure on my work pc which is duplicated to DropBox, which in turn connects with iAnnotate and PDF Expert and that system is working quite well for me. So I'm not sure exactly what I'd be gaining with moving the whole spiel as it is to DT. I have, however, started to build more project based clusters in DT (e.g. a folder and sub folders for particular articles or other writing projects).

I haven't tried Sente yet. I've been looking at some reviews, but EndNote is the supported program at my uni (and I've used it for years), so I'm likely to just stick with that for a while. Do you have experience with EndNote/ know how it compares to Sente?

[MathRulz]

Originally Posted by jojoba

I haven't tried Sente yet. I've been looking at some reviews, but EndNote is the supported program at my uni (and I've used it for years), so I'm likely to just stick with that for a while. Do you have experience with EndNote/ know how it compares to Sente?

I bought Endnote some years ago but never got into it. Just manually did my citations and reference lists (APA). Now I also need to be able to format some articles in Chicago with footnotes. I bought Sente last year and love the ability to import not only a reference and abstract but also the PDF as well and then to quote, copy, notate,etc in the same app. The sync with the iPad works well to.

FYI-- Scrivener is another tool I am very high on. An iPad version is now in development.

[jojoba]

Originally Posted by MathRulz

I bought Endnote some years ago but never got into it. Just manually did my citations and reference lists (APA). Now I also need to be able to format some articles in Chicago with footnotes. I bought Sente last year and love the ability to import not only a reference and abstract but also the PDF as well and then to quote, copy, notate,etc in the same app. The sync with the iPad works well to.

FYI-- Scrivener is another tool I am very high on. An iPad version is now in development.

I see. That sounds quite nice. I might look again at Sente eventually.

Yes, I discovered Scrivener about six months ago (was using it today, actually). I LOVE it. The only challenge I have with it is that I do a lot of co-authoring and my colleagues don't use it. I haven't fully put it to the test yet in that context, so I'm interested to see how it will pan out.

I also really like CurioCore - do you use that? Great for the brain storming/ thought organising phase. I also use it sometimes to support sorting of data.

[MathRulz]

Originally Posted by jojoba

I also really like CurioCore - do you use that? Great for the brain storming/ thought organising phase. I also use it sometimes to support sorting of data.

I bought Curio Pro not too long ago. I haven't yet done a lot with it, but it appears to be quite amazing,especially on a 27" screen. For a book review I am doing, I have a mind map, outline, the PDF of the book, journal book review guidelines, and some related articles all on one screen in Curio.

[Zeiss]

this is such an important post / chat etc. As an academic I am always looking for ways to streamline my work processes and utilising software to do this. To that end, I use Scrivener, Papers 2 (OSX & iOS), OmniFocus, Evernote, and bits and pieces of other stuff. DTPO has always been in the background, and I have always felt that there was something in it that I should be making use of, but could just never work it out...

Will check out the reference, but in the meantime, to keep the thread going, perhaps some conversation around how people are using what.....?

[jojoba]

Originally Posted by MathRulz

I bought Curio Pro not too long ago. I haven't yet done a lot with it, but it appears to be quite amazing,especially on a 27" screen. For a book review I am doing, I have a mind map, outline, the PDF of the book, journal book review guidelines, and some related articles all on one screen in Curio.

I'm totally jealous of that screen

Originally Posted by Zeiss

this is such an important post / chat etc. As an academic I am always looking for ways to streamline my work processes and utilising software to do this. To that end, I use Scrivener, Papers 2 (OSX & iOS), OmniFocus, Evernote, and bits and pieces of other stuff. DTPO has always been in the background, and I have always felt that there was something in it that I should be making use of, but could just never work it out...

Will check out the reference, but in the meantime, to keep the thread going, perhaps some conversation around how people are using what.....?

Yes, I was planning to start a more general 'academic work apps' thread, but haven't gotten around to it. I have one on iPad apps here, if you have an iPad:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1292054

I only switched to mac less than half a year ago so I'm still in the process of figuring out how to best organise my work, but this is what I'm doing at the moment:

I use Curio Core for brainstorming and arranging ideas and creating outlines, and for some data sorting.

I use iAnnotate and PDF Expert on my iPad for all reading and annotation of journal articles/ pdfs. They sync through DropBox to my literature folders at my work pc (my uni is a pure windows environment).

I use Scrivener as my main writing tool at the moment (though I suspect to run into some challenges because I do a lot of co-authoring). I also use it to systematise my literature review notes, but I also use Excel for that purpose. I think I'll keep using both depending on context.

I use EndNote for referencing. I haven't tried it out with Scrivener yet but it's supposed to be possible to integrate it.

I use Circus Ponies notebook to keep all my meeting notes/ notes for supervising students, etc. I use that on my iPad, too, and there I also use Notability for hand written notes.

And as I wrote upthread, I'm exploring DT now. I haven't yet decided on the best way of using it for work, but I'm going to go through that book and then consider again.

What do you use Omnifocus for/ what kind of app is it?

[MathRulz]

OmniFocus is the supreme "to do" app. However, $$. I use it on Mac and iPad--syncs easily. Implements David Allen's GTD approach. (Getting Things Done)

[flynz4]

We use DevonThink to help manage a "paperless home office". I have been scanning normal paper (Bills, Deeds, Reference material, etc) for about a year... but we had years worth of paper in boxes in a closet.

Last night my wife and I scanned approximately 3000 pages of "stuff". We have a Fujitsu S1500M sheet scanner which was fantastic. We had so much that I didn't even adjust the feeder to match the width of the papers that I was feeding in. Because of that, some would occasionally feed at an angle... and it was amazing to watch that it instantly straightened every one... and flipped pages that were inserted upside down or perpendicular. It also of course scanned both sides of each page (full duplex) and digitally removed blank pages.

I was feeding the scanner so fast that my wife could not keep up in feeding the shredder as I scanned. Three or four hours later... we have many huge bags of shredded documents in the garage, waiting for next weeks trash pickup.

I had OCR enabled, and my i7 took most of the night to catch up with the all of the character recognition before it finished loading the docs into DevonThink. Now it is all indexed and I can search all of that heap instantaneously. I have been "playing" with the search and it is incredible to have the searches pop up flawlessly with relevance bars... It almost makes you wonder if it is worth it to ever sort or file the data.

I am liking this!

/Jim

[jojoba]

Originally Posted by MathRulz

OmniFocus is the supreme "to do" app. However, $$. I use it on Mac and iPad--syncs easily. Implements David Allen's GTD approach. (Getting Things Done)

Thanks! I had a look at the web site, too. Not really something I feel I have the need for, but it looks like a powerful app.

Originally Posted by flynz4

We use DevonThink to help manage a "paperless home office". I have been scanning normal paper (Bills, Deeds, Reference material, etc) for about a year... but we had years worth of paper in boxes in a closet.

Last night my wife and I scanned approximately 3000 pages of "stuff". We have a Fujitsu S1500M sheet scanner which was fantastic. We had so much that I didn't even adjust the feeder to match the width of the papers that I was feeding in. Because of that, some would occasionally feed at an angle... and it was amazing to watch that it instantly straightened every one... and flipped pages that were inserted upside down or perpendicular. It also of course scanned both sides of each page (full duplex) and digitally removed blank pages.

I was feeding the scanner so fast that my wife could not keep up in feeding the shredder as I scanned. Three or four hours later... we have many huge bags of shredded documents in the garage, waiting for next weeks trash pickup.

I had OCR enabled, and my i7 took most of the night to catch up with the all of the character recognition before it finished loading the docs into DevonThink. Now it is all indexed and I can search all of that heap instantaneously. I have been "playing" with the search and it is incredible to have the searches pop up flawlessly with relevance bars... It almost makes you wonder if it is worth it to ever sort or file the data.

I am liking this!

/Jim

This is my objective now, too. For the past week, I've primarily been trying to organise personal (as opposed to work related) papers. I can't WAIT to get it all in there but I'm really dreading the scanning job involved. I don't have a scanner at home so it will be a case of scan+email on my work printer and then transfer to DT. I, too, have those big boxes... but I think ultimately it's definitely worth the effort.

[elefantrider]

After seeing this thread and reading the demo, I too will be buying the Taking Control book.

It looks like there are 3 different ways to buy the book, on Kindle, App Store or direct. I'm not sure if it is any different but the Kindle version is half price, $7.

[jojoba]

Damn, which I had picked it up on my Kindle

As an update since my March posts, I'm loving DT. I'm not yet using it to its full potential (by far), but I love the ease with which I can assign stuff from any app to different projects. It's brilliant.

[osx-addict]

I'm coming in a bit late in this thread but the topic still seems relevant.. I recently purchased the Pro Office version of DevonThink specifically because it has the OCR feature to use in conjunction with our recently bought Scansnap S1300 (to replace our aging but still functioning Scansnap 5110EOX -- no decent drivers for it on the Mac that would work seamlessly with DTPO).. Anyway, we are slowly trying to get to be mostly paperless -- scanning bills, medical statements, importing bank estatements directly (they're much smaller than the scanned equivs),etc..

A few things I'm hesitant to destroy after scanning -- deeds in particular or papers from the local county/state office with an official seal -- obviously NOT birth certs!.. What do you all do with those more 'official' docs?

By the way.. For those of you that have the S1500, is the speed of scanning pretty decent? We are currently using the S1300 (smaller brother to the S1500) and it's pretty slow compared to our older FI-5110EOX Scansnap which was pretty darned fast (I think the S1500 is more or less a newer version of our old FI-5110).. Luckily I picked this S1300 up from Craigslist for $150 so the out of pocket wasn't bad -- the old FI-5110 scanner was close to $800 about 7-8 years ago! Ouch!

As for DTPO -- I'm using one database on the 2nd Mac drive and have imported ALL of my docs into it and I think I've converted most PDF's scanned by the old scanner into OCR'd "Pdf + text" equivs -- interestingly enough, the filesizes are HUGELY different between the originals and OCR'd versions.. With our old scanner I was using ScanTango at 200DPI.. It would create HUGE documents in the last few versions of OSX -- a 10 page doc could easily be 100Mb in size with no OCR -- that same document after DTPO got it transformed was perhaps 1-2Mb in size -- a huge difference.

Anyway, my DTPO database is a bit over 25Gb in size although after I empty the DTPO trashcan it will probably shrink by a gig or two after I delete the original (larger) PDF's before OCR was done.

A few questions for you all :

1) Is there a way to have newly scanned docs get filenames applied without a popup dialog box? Currently after OCR'ing is done I get a popup dialog asking for the filename + timestamp and DTPO will stop and wait until "OK" is pressed before continuing to OCR the next document in the queue.

2) I notice when converting a document to an OCR'd equivalent that occasionally the new OCR'd version of the document is a bit fuzzier than the original was -- is there a way to adjust this? There has been a few times where I've considered keeping the non-OCR'd version of the document because of this fuzzyness.

Also -- now that you're making your databases, please ensure that you back them up from time to time! I'm personally using CrashPlan to backup my stuff offline (and encrypted of course)..

[flynz4]

Originally Posted by osx-addict

I'm coming in a bit late in this thread but the topic still seems relevant.. I recently purchased the Pro Office version of DevonThink specifically because it has the OCR feature to use in conjunction with our recently bought Scansnap S1300 (to replace our aging but still functioning Scansnap 5110EOX -- no decent drivers for it on the Mac that would work seamlessly with DTPO).. Anyway, we are slowly trying to get to be mostly paperless -- scanning bills, medical statements, importing bank estatements directly (they're much smaller than the scanned equivs),etc..

A few things I'm hesitant to destroy after scanning -- deeds in particular or papers from the local county/state office with an official seal -- obviously NOT birth certs!.. What do you all do with those more 'official' docs?

By the way.. For those of you that have the S1500, is the speed of scanning pretty decent? We are currently using the S1300 (smaller brother to the S1500) and it's pretty slow compared to our older FI-5110EOX Scansnap which was pretty darned fast (I think the S1500 is more or less a newer version of our old FI-5110).. Luckily I picked this S1300 up from Craigslist for $150 so the out of pocket wasn't bad -- the old FI-5110 scanner was close to $800 about 7-8 years ago! Ouch!

As for DTPO -- I'm using one database on the 2nd Mac drive and have imported ALL of my docs into it and I think I've converted most PDF's scanned by the old scanner into OCR'd "Pdf + text" equivs -- interestingly enough, the filesizes are HUGELY different between the originals and OCR'd versions.. With our old scanner I was using ScanTango at 200DPI.. It would create HUGE documents in the last few versions of OSX -- a 10 page doc could easily be 100Mb in size with no OCR -- that same document after DTPO got it transformed was perhaps 1-2Mb in size -- a huge difference.

Anyway, my DTPO database is a bit over 25Gb in size although after I empty the DTPO trashcan it will probably shrink by a gig or two after I delete the original (larger) PDF's before OCR was done.

A few questions for you all :

1) Is there a way to have newly scanned docs get filenames applied without a popup dialog box? Currently after OCR'ing is done I get a popup dialog asking for the filename + timestamp and DTPO will stop and wait until "OK" is pressed before continuing to OCR the next document in the queue.

2) I notice when converting a document to an OCR'd equivalent that occasionally the new OCR'd version of the document is a bit fuzzier than the original was -- is there a way to adjust this? There has been a few times where I've considered keeping the non-OCR'd version of the document because of this fuzzyness.

Also -- now that you're making your databases, please ensure that you back them up from time to time! I'm personally using CrashPlan to backup my stuff offline (and encrypted of course)..

I also do NOT destroy any official documents with a seal... etc. I also do not destroy property deeds, etc.

The S1500M is extremely fast. I think it scans 20 pages per minute (both sides at once)... so that would be about 3 seconds per page. Sometimes when my wife and I are both working the stacks of paper... I can scan the documents faster than she can feed the shredder... and she will shred about 5 pages at a time.

To answer your questions as best I can:

1) I use a S1500M out of the box and DTPO. I automatically get a "date" filename and there is no delay or user propmts. The ScanSnap just crunches away through documents as fast as I can load them.

2) I have not noticed fuzziness. I generally do not have a "pre-OCR" and "post-OCR" file. I scan... and I immediately get the "PDF+Text". Any intermediate files are auto deleted. Maybe I just didn't notice any image degradation. The quality that I get is fine for my usage. In fact... it is better than needed.

Like you... I also back up. I back up locally to Time Machine... and offsite using Crashplan+

/Jim

[osx-addict]

Thanks Jim.. In my case ALL of my scans done with the old ScanSnap FI-5110EOX had no text (e.g. no OCR done) as the software I was using for the past 7+ years didn't easily support it without buying a separate OCR package and writing some sort of scripts so they were all PDF image copies of the originals done using ScanTango.

I agree that IF you're scanning new material you will not need a pre/post OCR set of stages as it's all done at once. However, in my case where I was converting older documents over from the older scanner is when I noticed the fuzziness,etc..

As for the speed of the S1300, even at 100DPI the speed appeared to be the same -- something akin to about 15-20 seconds per page (duplexed of course) -- I just checked the specs and it's 4 pages per minute so that would be about right.

I've got a standing Craigslist search for an S1500M and if I find one for perhaps $200-$250 that works fine I may decide to upgrade to the much faster device.