Take Control of Getting Started with DEVONthink

With the information-management program DEVONthink 2, you no longer have to swim in a sea of Web bookmarks, email receipts, RSS feeds, scanned memorabilia, Post-it notes, and phone bills. DEVONthink stores your digital documents and clippings, helps you scan and store paper documents, and serves as home base for organizing and viewing all your information. But mastering all that power can take effort, and this ebook—created in partnership with DEVONtechnologies—has the real-world advice you need to understand how DEVONthink can bring order to your information.

After covering essential DEVONthink vocabulary and concepts, Joe helps you start using DEVONthink effectively. You'll learn how to:
• Get around in the interface.
• Decide how many databases you need and set them up.
• Determine whether to input or index data.
• Configure where incoming data will go.
• Import data from many different applications.
• Input data from a scanner, including OCR options.
• Use grouping and tagging to organize data.
• Use simple (and sophisticated) techniques for searching.
• Create smart groups that automatically gather newly imported data.
• Edit data in DEVONthink (or externally).
• Find the best way to sync DEVONthink data with other devices.
• Share DEVONthink data with other people.
• Export data from DEVONthink.
• Back up and maintain healthy databases.

What’s New in the Second Edition
DEVONthink has been updated quite a few times since I wrote the first edition of this book, and even though the software is still “DEVONthink 2” (that is, version 2.x), the latest version as I write this text—version 2.3.3—includes hundreds of differences from version 2.0. (I am reliably informed that the next major update, version 2.5—due at some point in the first several months of 2012—will still closely match what this book describes.) In addition, since the first edition appeared, Apple released Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, which introduces its own long list of changes.

Tip: If you already read the first edition of this book, take a glance at Quicker Start for First Edition Readers!

Among the most significant changes are the following:

• A new section about the Assistant, which provides tips and support tools. See Assistant.
• Information about the two forms of Full Screen mode (one of which is the Lion method). See Full Screen.
• A mention of the Activity panel, used during syncing. See Activity.
• An introduction to the new Workspaces feature, which lets you save windows, views, and other onscreen elements. See Workspaces.
• A sidebar explaining why Dropbox and local network servers aren’t good places to store your DEVONthink databases. See Where Not to Store Your Databases.
• Thoroughly revised guidance regarding groups and tags, now that “Exclude Groups from Tagging” is the default setting for new databases. See Configure Database Properties and Understand Groups and Tags.
• A tip about importing and deleting documents in one step. See the sidebar Import and Delete.
• Details about how the Sorter now interacts with Lion’s Full Screen mode. See Use the Sorter.
• Instructions on installing and working with the new DEVONthink extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. See Use the Clip to DEVONthink Browser Extension.
• Significantly revised instructions on using bookmarklets. See Grab Web Data with Bookmarklets.
• An expanded discussion about adding email messages, which now includes importing them from Microsoft Outlook and Entourage. See Add Email Messages, and especially Use the Outlook and Entourage AppleScripts.
• Coverage of DEVONthink’s new capability to communicate directly with many scanners and digital cameras. See Scan Documents into DEVONthink, and in particular Pull an Image from a Scanner or Camera.
• Information about using compound predicates in smart groups. See Use the Smart Group Editor.
• A new chapter about using the recently introduced capability to sync databases with other copies of DEVONthink, Dropbox, and other locations. See Sync DEVONthink Databases between Macs.
• A new chapter about DEVONthink To Go, an iOS app that lets you take your DEVONthink databases with you. See Use DEVONthink To Go.
• An appendix listing shortcuts involving the keyboard (with or without the mouse) that may not be obvious. See Appendix A: Keyboard Shortcuts.