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 Application Icon The File Menu
 

The File menu contains all commands that deal directly with files in your volumes, databases, or files that can be imported, exported, or indexed. Also, the File menu contains commands for printing documents.


New Window

New Window: Opens a new main window for an open database (if only one database is open no sub-menu is available). DEVONthink Personal windows present all documents and groups of a database in a Finder-like fashion, and are used to access all stored items. Some views also contain a view/edit pane for easy viewing and editing of documents.


Import

Import: Imports files or complete folders from your volumes into the database. You can find a list of all supported file formats in the appendix. If not stated differently, data is imported to the default destination. Finder labels are honored when possible.

The flexible plug-in architecture of DEVONthink Personal allows other import modules to be added. DEVONthink Personal comes with the following default import plug-ins:

  • Bookmarks: Imports bookmarks from Camino, Firefox, OmniWeb, or Safari as bookmarks. Only new bookmarks are imported if you use this command again; DEVONthink Personal synchronizes the imported bookmarks with the browser's bookmarks every time the database is opened.

Index: Adds selected files to your database, but only as references, and not in their entirety. DEVONthink Personal indexes the contents of the file and uses this for classification and other content-related functions. Indexed items show a little arrow after their name. For unknown file types, this command creates a bookmark. You can also drag files from the Finder to DEVONthink Personal; hold down the Command and Option keys to index them. This is similar to creating an alias in the Finder. Indexed groups are excluded from tagging by default and changes to an indexed document are immediately reflexted in its OpenMeta meta data (and are so noticable by external tagging applications).

Note: External indexed files or folders located in '/System/', '/Library/' or '~/Library/' are never renamed or deleted so that you cannot accidentally cause harm to the system.


Synchronize

Synchronize: This command synchronizes one or more selected groups or documents with their corresponding folders or files in the file system. It also reads changes made to the Finder or Spotlight comments of the to-be sync'ed files and applies them to their counterparts in the database. Finally, this command removes indexed items that have lost their external counterpart. It does not affect items moved manually to the group. Use Synchronize to keep indexed groups and their originating folders in sync or to manually update an item that you have changed directly inside the database package when DEVONthink Personal was not running.

To create this link, which is maintained by the Path field in the Info panel, you have to freshly import/index your folder of choice.

Select the group(s) and/or document(s) and choose File > Synchronize to import all files that have been newly added to the synced folder(s) in the file system.

Note: The synchronization is one-way only, from the file system to the database, but: when you rename a document its file is renamed, too, and when you change the Spotlight comments of a document this is reflected in the file system as well.


Export

Export: This sub-menu allows you to export selected documents or groups to the file system. File > Export > Files and Folders will recreate the hierarchy you have built in DEVONthink Personal almost exactly; meta data files ('.DEVONtech_storage') make sure that no meta data such as comments, URLs, etc. are lost. DEVONthink Personal reads these files when importing and so recreates your original data structure.

Identical to File > Import, the Export sub-menu provides additional export methods based on plug-ins. DEVONthink Personal comes with a variety of plug-ins for exporting documents in different formats as standard. Currently the following plug-ins are available:

  • as Rich Text (RTF): Exports the selected items as one large rich text file (without embedded images, etc.)
  • as Rich Text (RTFD): Exports the selected items as one large rich text file, including embedded images, etc. Technically, the result is a folder with the .rtfd name extension, which is treated by Mac OS X like a single file (Apple calls this a 'package').
  • as Text: Exports the selected items as one large plain text file.
  • as Word Document: Exports the selected items as one large Microsoft Word file.
  • to iPod: Exports the selected items as plain text notes to an attached iPod (3rd Generation or later, iPod touch and iPhone are not (yet) supported).
  • as Website: Exports the selected items as standalone web site that you can upload to your web server and share with your colleagues. In the appearing dialog window, choose the desired template, text encoding, and whether DEVONthink Personal should convert diacritics and accented characters to HTML entities or not. File types that cannot be displayed in a web browser, e.g. iWork Pages files, are converted to PDF if possible. For the export, templates that you can modify yourself are used. [Read more...]
  • as Template: Saves the selected document as a template. It can then be used to quickly create new documents using Data > New > With Template. To remove a saved template or to organize your templates in sub-folders, visit the folder '~/Library/Application Support/DEVONthink 2/Templates.noindex' in the Finder, then create sub-folders, move items, rename them, or trash them.
  • Database Archive: Creates a clean copy of the frontmost database and compresses it as a .Zip archive. Backup the copy to any medium or server to keep your data safe from hardware or software failures.


Properties

Database Properties: Opens the Database Properties panel, for the selected database (if only one database is open no sub-menu is available) that allows you to change properties such as database name, comments, and username/password. Also, you can tell DEVONthink Personal to open this database by default.


Page Setup, Print

Page Setup: Sets your preferred page size.

Print: Prints the selected or front-most document.

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