Copy text from MS_Office Powerpoint or Word

Hello all, as a Devonthink 3 newbie I have a question I almost don’t dare to ask.
After importing Powerpoint or Word-Files into DT3, I want to copy certain text clips from either PP or Word-Documents and paste them into my word processor. But I’m not able to select any text, not to mention copy it. Cursor does not change from arrow to select bar, right-click is not possible either.
When I try the same procedure with imported PDF files, it works flawlessly. Am I missing something?
Thanks
marty

These file formats are displayed via Quick Look which doesn’t support this unfortunately. At least in case of Word you can switch to an alternate view (see navigation bar or menu View) which supports this.

Okay, thanks. Does that mean that Powerpoint files are not even searchable?

As long as they’re compatible to Spotlight’s plugin for MS Office documents they are usually searchable.

Well, unfortunately in my case it does not work. I easily find the keywords I am searching via spotlight (MacOS 10.13.4), but not in DT3. Just out of interest - what are the thoughts behind excluding probably the most used presentation software in the world from being accessable with DT?
It’s a little bit frustrating since I acquired DT3 as a tool to gather and process information (which is what DT is praised for…), but in my profession this information often comes as Powerpoint presentation (from external sources, so I cannot change that).
Which finally means the workflow I was planning to establish obviously doesn’t work at all. Am I the only one needing to cope with Powerpoint? Any ideas how to work around this? Thanks for any contribution.

what are the thoughts behind excluding probably the most used presentation software in the world from being accessable with DT?

There is no exclusion.
Powerpoint files can be imported and viewed in DEVONthink.
If the slides have text, i.e., not just graphics containing text, they are also searchable.

And using the View > Document Display > Text Alternative in DEVONthink 3 Pro, you can see a highlighted search hit in the text of the document.

Search hits cannot be shown in the rendered slide, due to liimitations of Apple’s QuickLook frameworks.

Thank you for your reply! So my configuration seems to be different from yours, since it doesn’t work like you show in the screenshots. My pptx files do contain text, not just graphics, as I can see when searching the keywords with spotlight or using the internal Powerpoint search. I can search, find, copy or edit any given word in the presentation. Yet DT3 cannot find any text. And when I try to change the view to “Text alternative” the options are greyed out. There is no choice but staying with the preselected “Best Alternative”…

You need to be running DEVONthink 3 Pro for the Text Alternative view.

Additionally, it’s possible you may need to do a File > Rebuild Database to ensure the index is up to date.

Dear Bluefrog, kudos to you - this was very helpful. I am running DT3 Pro, so this was not the issue. But rebuilding the database solved my problem. Now I am able to search/find keywords in Powerpoint files and switch into “Text alternative” view. Thanks a lot!

(Still a pity though that “copy/paste” from a Powerpoint presentation or Word document is not possible - any chance to include this feature in upcoming versions, or is this merely an Apple issue?)

Quick Look doesn’t support this yet unfortunately and as it’s basically a black box, it’s impossible for us to customize it.

You’re welcome :slight_smile: