Can you link one Note/PDF to a related Note/PDF

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1

I’m wondering if you can link two notes in Devonthink that are PDF’s to each other as the info relates one another. I can’t figure out how you would do this.

Also, is there an indicator that these items would be linked.

Thanks

2

The simplest way to do this is to make an RTF file (open it in a separate window for ease), then click-cmd-option-drag your PDFs to that RTF to make links to the two (or more) files in the RTF. That new document is now like a table of contents.

A less obvious way is to ctrl-click one PDF, chose “Copy Item Link” to put a link to that PDF on the clipboard. Go to the second PDF, and open Tools > Show Info. In the URL field of the Info panel for that second PDF past (cmd-v) the link that’s on the clipboard. Then, do the process in reverse - pasting the link for PDF two into the URL field of PDF one. These URLs appear at the top of any PDF preview and are clickable. (I don’t like this method - it’s obscure and has problems - e.g., if a PDF already has an URL value then you need to override it.)

Or, use one of the Annotation templates.

All this works for any kind of document, not just PDFs.

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I like your first option the best. I was actually thinking that maybe it could be done this way. I’m just trialing the software and I’m finding it pretty complex.

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There’s some scripts on the forum for automating the first action.

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Great.

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I have the same requirement as the OP. The solution given may be working, but it is a kludge:

  • How would I quickly see which documents are linked to the PDF I am currently viewing? If I understand it, I have to navigate to the “linking RTF” for the PDF in question.
  • I have to keep such a “linking RTF” for each PDF that I want to link to other items.
  • When establishing a new link between two PDF items, I’d have to update two "linking RTF"s manually, adding the alternate PDF to each of the two involved in the link established

What I’d like to see is that the metadata of an item is amended by a “Links/Attachments” list (shown e.g. in that item’s Info panel), where I can drag other items onto to establish a linking relationship between those items. (The single metadata URL field is not enough, because one item should be able to link/refer to multiple others.) The established links should be bidirectional, i.e. adding an item to that Links list of one item automatically adds that one item to the Links list of the other. The links in that list would be clickable in the UI and take you directly to the respective item.

The one application I know of that does this particular thing nicely is SOHO Notes (not promoting it, but just using as an example of the desired functionality and a convenient UI for it).

In my work, explicitly cross-linking items is something that I need quite frequently, and currently it’s the one issue why I am using DTPro only reluctantly.

Do others have an idea how creating relationships between items (for me, that’s mostly PDFs and finished 3rd-party Word documents, i.e. items I cannot edit) in a straightforward manner could be pulled off with what we’ve got in DTPro now? That would be highly appreciated!

Thanks,
Christian

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