Creating a linked note for a pdf

DEVONthink Automation
1

Hello,
I’m looking for a way to create a note file related to a pdf. My idea was to get the name of the currently in DEVONthink selected pdf, create a new rtf document (or .txt or whatever would work easily) in the same group, name it “(Name of the pdf) Summary”. Then I wanted to populate the first lines of the document with it’s name, data from custom metadata fields I previously filled out manually and a DEVONthink link to the original pdf document:

Name
author
year
link

Finally DEVONthink would put a link to the file it just created in a custom metadata field called “summary” in the original pdf and open the new document.
In the end I’d have a document where I could write a summary for the PDF kind of similar to the “summarize annotations” command and if I’d be working with the original PDF later I could easily access my summary.

So after a couple of hours getting into templates and applescript I’m still unable to get the name of the currently selected file and create a new text document. If you wondered: Yes, that’s quite frustrating! :smiley:

Could someone please help me?
Thank you!

P. S. Apart from my failure to script it, DT is a wonderful application and I really love it!

2

Welcome @NR117

This is already something (mostly) in place. Look at the Help > Documentation > Inspectors > Annotations & Reminders about Annotation files.

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There are also many people who have discussed Annotation files on these forums.

3

Thank you very much for your fast response.
This feature indeed solves most of the problem! :slight_smile:
Strangely the “Insert Back Link” menu option doesn’t seem to do anything in my case. Do I have to select any text in the annotation file before I use it? Using the %documentLink% placeholder in a custom template does work.
Is there any way to use placeholders to populate the annotation file with information from the custom metadata fields of the original file? I tried %name% and %year% but only received my name and the current year.

Thanks again for your fast support!

4

You’re welcome :slight_smile:

  • You need to have the view/edit pane displaying the document to use Insert Back Link.

  • No, there are no placeholders that will work in the Annotation file like this. Development would have to assess the feasibility of the request but it is the first of its kind.