So, I’m all in on switching from Evernote to DEVONthink, but having trouble choosing between Pro and Standard.
Looking at the additional features in Pro, there are only a couple that are meaningful to me.
I’m unclear on what is meant by the following:
Image Capture Support
Grouping Similar Items (is this the AI behind Categorize, and See Also?)
Download Manager
I could see some potential benefit in the email archiving, but probably not.
Which leaves OCR.
I use OCR only for creating searchable PDF files and my scanner software already does that. I will at times import PDFs that come from other sources so the ability to make them searchable is of value, but I plan to also subscribe to DTTG which includes OCR.
Is the ABBYY OCR engine going to be appreciably better than the OCR in Brother iPrint & Scan or DTTG? I just want searchable files, I’m not converting to RTF to anything.
I’m inclined to either go ahead and spend the extra $100 on Pro, but I feel like I may be perfectly happy with Standard and dealing with the extra effort of using DTTG for one off OCR of documents that don’t go through my scanner.
I’m pretty sure I can upgrade from Standard to Pro without penalty (maybe even wait for the next discount to do so).
If I pay the extra $100 for pro, can I use the 14 day refund period to downgrade to Standard if I have buyers remorse?
Yeah, I’ve been using the trial for about a week now. The problem I’m running into is every time I run over the limit on OCR processing inside the app importing from my scanner software brakes because DEVONthink it’s trying to re-process the scan files or something there is evidently, a 20 document daily limit on the built-in OCR in the trial software. I’ll probably just buy the pro but honestly most of the features other than OCR don’t seem particularly compelling.
There’s no daily limit, or any kind of limit at all, on the trial version, so whatever’s going on with the OCR is nothing to do with being on the trial. It’s more likely a quirk in the interaction of your scanner software with DT’s OCR; (<= misinformation; see next post) I know if I queue up multiple documents for OCR from my ScanSnap I need to remember to save each one before I scan the next or the queue freezes.
There’s no advantage, and considerable disadvantage, in paying for Standard before the 30-day/150-hour trial period is up, since all you’re doing is turning off the Pro and Server feature sets, which you may as well max out before you finalise which version will suffice. In particular, the trial period is the only way to check out the much more expensive Server version without taking the plunge and paying for it; it’s a bit niche and you probably won’t have any use for it till much further down the line, but it’s worth taking for a spin while you have it for free.
This is a bit niche, but while DT’s ABBYY engine is outstanding for most purposes and its handling of multiple languages is close to sorcery, the rival IRIS engine used by NitroPDF Pro seems to be better at recognising style hierarchies. This gives Nitro the edge if I want to go on to auto-generate a PDF table of contents in PDFOutliner or similar. (But in-app ToC creation is on the DT roadmap, so the Nitro edge may not last.)
Personally (and this is what I did) I say just buy the Pro version. You don’t know how much you’ll use the other features until you get them - it’s very likely your DT use will expand as you get more comfortable with the software, so you might as well give yourself the most room to play in at the outset.
Also you probably don’t realise how often being able to “re-OCR” something would help you. I find myself doing it a couple of times a month, with old PDF files, screengrabs of text that I need to save, webinar slides that weren’t shared correctly, etc.
I think what I’ll actually do is wait to see if DT offer a discount before my trial ends, unless the OCR limit turns into an appreciable issue. Then I guess probably go Pro and call it a day.
I’m really impressed with the product so far, and I do not miss Evernote a bit.
DT generally participate in the twice-yearly Festival of Artisanal Software group sale coordinated by the Tinderbox people, which will next fall towards the end of June. The discount (typically 25%) offered in those sales also applies to upgrades from standard to Pro. Of course there’s no guarantee the pattern of past years will repeat itself.
