Exporting annotations with details to RTF or Markdown (get to Tinderbox)

DEVONthink Automation
1

I have two questions:

  1. In DT3 when summarizing annotation to RTF or Marketdown is there a way for the summary file to include the “details” that I’ve added to a highlight. In other words, in the RTF or Markdown I want both the high-light text as well as the details I’ve added.
  2. Is there a way to add other details about the DT3 file in the export, e.g. tags, author, citation, etc.?

My ultimate goes is to get these notes in to Tinderbox.

2

Which app did you use to add the details?

3

DT3

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4

Which version of DEVONthink and of macOS do you use?

5

DT3, MacBook Pro, BigSur (latest update)

6

And which version of DEVONthink 3? See e.g. About panel.

7

I use DT3 V3.52. Happy to get latest version if it is not.

8

The current version is 3.6.1. Definitely stay up to date with our software.

9

Great, thanks. I’ve updated my software. Now, can someone help me with my question? I still don’t know how to get annotations out of DT3 cleanly. Another idea I had, is there a way to export annotations to a spreadsheet, one that includes custom fields, tags, and retains the annotation link to the place in the original document?

10

There is currently no mechanism to automatically get the details in a summary file.
And no there is no option to export annotations to a spreadsheet.
Development would have to assess these requests.

11

Hi guys,

any update on this? for me, exporting highlights / annotations with color coding exported as markdown would be enough…. (ideally pdf source backlink to annotated page as well).

cheers,

j

2 Likes
12

Yes, major updates. You must have missed my video: Tinderbox Lesson - Annotating with Highlights App DEVONThink Zotero and TBX - YouTube.

Enjoy, let me know if you have any questions.

13

Hi Michael,

I did indeed watch it. your scripting / stamping mojo is very cooI and alos intmidating. but I will figure that out. I personally use bookends which creates little notecards in a stream but does not export the colors of the highlight. I do own Highlights App first version and bought it for the reference llokup powers which for me only work sporadically. alas, after buying V1 with peomise of an ios app, this took years in addition to the developer now having a subscription model approach. maybe I should try your flow and see if highlights v1 suffices. ideally, I‘d stay in bookends as ai vera much enjoy their ipad app. alternatively, I‘d be good with DTPO3 having the export feature as I use both apps complimentary.

keep up the great work!

14

Note, my approach should work for any PDF app that exports annotations to a standard, parsable, structure like markdown. I’ve tested with Readwise, Skim, PDFExport with good results. Different structures will require updates to the regular express (RegEx) parsing, but that is straightforward to do. You can either learn Regex, which at first is intimidating, but after a bit the familiarity comes fast. There are free tutorials. Perhaps one day, I can do one within the Tinderbox context. You can always ask the community members for help too, i.e. “What RegEx can I use for parse this?” I find this forum, Tinderbox, and Stackoverflow to be great resources.

2 Likes
15

Dear Michael,

thanks for the reply. With readwise you mean pdf expert ? (haven’t found markdown export there) but they als need to preserve the color scheme while exporting, correct? Maybe I can shamelessly steal your stamp / regex coding to start out at some point when I have looked at the alternatives you provided…

All the best,

J

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Hey there, BTW, have you seen the SKIM process we developed: Tinderbox Meetup- Meetup 15OCT22 Parsing Highlights in SKIM - Training Videos - Tinderbox Forum.