— Import a few thousand PDFs into DTPO after renaming them Author, date
— Tag them according to rough categories
— For some of them, enter them in Bookends. This last step is what this question is about.
The ideal is for the PDF to stay in DTPO as an attachment. And that there is some simple way for me to highlight information in the PDF and automatically convey to BE fields.
I find it hard to think no one else does this or wants to, so suppose there is an easy work flow.
Basically, you have a file and want to catalogue it in two apps. Therefore they need to have the same access to the file.
I have a folder in the Finder - I call it the File Store - and DTPO set to index it. Pdfs go there and are then imported to DTPO… For ones that are also to be catalogued in Bookends, I have that File Store folder set as the Attachment folder for Bookends.
So I can either add an attachment to to a Bookends reference and it is automatically added to the File Store, or, if the pdf is already in File Store I just skip that part of adding the attachment in Bookends.
I get the metadata for Bookends from the online search on that app.
I had thought of this. (I assume you mean that the PDFs are indexed from that folder and not imported into DTPO.)
The relationship between the two apps is something of a mess, and it seems that I cannot do what I want, which was an orderly walk through the PDFs, enhancing/annotating them. At some point entering into BE if they are worthy, using some automated method.
So it looks like a disorderly process is what I will do. Dump everything in (might as well be in the DB). Use annotation templates and if entering in BE basically do it manually. Had hoped for some more intimate integration.
I find that there is a pretty good relationship between DTPO and Bookends for my purposes. All my PDFs are stored in the Finder in a folder which is indexed by DTPO. Each PDF is filed in a subfolder with the same naming convention as the PDF (Author Date) and annotations that I do in DTPO are stored in the same subfolder. For those PDFs that I wish to reference I do an online search in Bookends and import the reference data. In the User 4 field in Bookends (that I have renamed DevonThink Link) I paste the ‘item link’ from DTPO. I ensure that in my ‘Summary’ view in Bookends the DevonThink Link is listed so that all I need to do in Bookends is click the link to open the attachment in DevonThink. Finally I use the ‘Reference from Bookends’ script in DTPO, that I have modified slightly, to create a document that has the citation and a template for writing a reading brief. Clicking the URL for this document will jump back to Bookends. I don’t bother to index the PDFs in Bookends as well as I find that using the DTPO item link simple and straightforward. As all my annotations are done in DTPO all I need Bookends for is for referencing purposes, which it does really well.
Yes, the files are stored in that folder and then imported into DTPO and Bookends.
The automation is your problem, and if you experience is anything like mine the metadata on the pdfs varies wildly. So, using kseggleton’s method for getting the citations is the best way to go.
I’m with him on this. These are two quite separate databases with two quite independent developers. The integration is remarkable when you bear that in mind.