My research is made up of plowing through a pile of PDF’s and highlighting useful thoughts. I then copy each one manually to an RTF file to create an Atomic Note/Zettle. I then drop them into Scrivener where I can reorder each of the Atomic Note/Zettle into the proper order for the paper I’m writing.
I understand that I can sumerize a PDF’s highlights and obtain an RTF containing all of the anotations in one document, but is there a way to obtain an export where each annotation is its own RTF document?
At first I would strongly recommend to not Summarize Highlights as RTF but as Markdown.
Yes, being a Scrivener user myself I know it’s a rich text app. But it is really good at importing Markdown too! Just use Scrivener’sImport and Split function and make sure that Split and structure using Markdown headings in the text is ticked as well as Convert Markdown.
Then you will get a Markdown document with each annotation as a sub-document.
If these sub-documents are looking like you want them to look… well. My guess would be: no. And they won’t contain no link to the PDF no more. But this is what you get with the standard functions of both apps. For everything more specific a script might help.
EDIT: When you search for “extract annotations” in theses forum you will find other approaches. To my own surprise—and if I didn’t oversee anything—just not yet the solution.
PS: You didn’t ask for it but I’d like to add another reason for skipping RTF instead of Markdown: Footnotes in Markdown notes will be transformed to Scrivener footnotes (inline/random footnotes into inline footnotes and the ones at the end of a document into Inspector footnotes). Since Apple did not properly implement Footnotes in its Text Engine Scrivener it won’t work with RTF.
Not a reply actually but a question to the DEVONtechnicians:
I briefly looked into the source Markdown created by Summarize Highlights and it did not look to complicated to further process. But when I used Summarize Highlights again I got a different output! I don’t know what I did but here are the results:
Links to lines:
# [Untersuchung gegen Johnson](x-devonthink-item://71CEFD6F-00BE-49AB-92C3-A6F834F00549)
## [Line 4](x-devonthink-item://71CEFD6F-00BE-49AB-92C3-A6F834F00549?line=3)
* {==Der britische Premierminister Boris Johnson muss sich wegen mutmaßlicher Lügen im Zusammenhang mit der "Partygate"-Affäre einer Untersuchung durch den zuständigen Ausschuss im Unterhaus stellen.==}
## [Line 7](x-devonthink-item://71CEFD6F-00BE-49AB-92C3-A6F834F00549?line=6)
* {==Einige seiner Parteikollegen forderten sogar seinen Rücktritt. Diesen hatte der Premier, der zu Besuch in Indien war, jedoch umgehend zurückgewiesen. "Ich glaube nicht, dass es das Richtige ist", sagte er in einem Interview mit dem==}
## [Line 10](x-devonthink-item://71CEFD6F-00BE-49AB-92C3-A6F834F00549?line=9)
* {==Nachrichtensender Sky News,==}
## [Line 13](x-devonthink-item://71CEFD6F-00BE-49AB-92C3-A6F834F00549?line=12)
* {==Johnson stellt sich nun auf den Standpunkt, er habe nicht gemerkt, dass es sich um Partys handelte.==}
Links to pages:
# [Untersuchung gegen Johnson](x-devonthink-item://551B2F15-C23A-471B-BC65-B2BAF3D753C1)
## [Page 1](x-devonthink-item://551B2F15-C23A-471B-BC65-B2BAF3D753C1?page=0)
* {==Der britische Premierminister Boris Johnson muss sich wegen mutmaßlicher Lügen im Zusammenhang mit der "Partygate"-Affäre einer Untersuchung durch den zuständigen Ausschuss im Unterhaus stellen.==}
* {==Einige seiner Parteikollegen forderten sogar seinen Rücktritt. Diesen hatte der Premier, der zu Besuch in Indien war, jedoch umgehend zurückgewiesen. "Ich glaube nicht, dass es das Richtige ist", sagte er in einem Interview mit dem Nachrichtensender Sky News,==}
## [Page 2](x-devonthink-item://551B2F15-C23A-471B-BC65-B2BAF3D753C1?page=1)
* {==Johnson stellt sich nun auf den Standpunkt, er habe nicht gemerkt, dass es sich um Partys handelte.==}
* {==Später stellte sich heraus, dass der Premier selbst an mehreren der fraglichen Zusammenkünfte teilgenommen hatte.==}
And both PDFs were created the same way: By Save as DEVONthink 3 from Safari and both PDFs had two pages.
For a script it is important to know what causes what because each needs a specific chopping.
(Could I by accident, stupidity or just plain fatigue have summerized the RTF summary instead of the PDF? I will look into it after a good night of sleep.)
This has been discussed on other threads (just letting you know, not at all criticising your question !)
I’m pretty sure there are more threads than this, but this is what my search found.
FWIW my preferred approach is to use the ($) app Highlights (App Store link) which has a one click export of PDF annotations to a DevonThink folder of separate markdown files.
I have now been able to get that Note on Source script to work for DevonThink3 after some help with tweaking the script from other people. For the OP, you can download that script here:
Then paste this tweaked script into the “main” file in the Scripts folder after you open package contents:
and, @KevinCoates KevinCoates, that Highlights app looks promising. Two questions if you don’t mind:
How would you compare it as a note-taking app to other PDF readers (PDF Expert, etc)?
When you export the files, can you do a naming convention automatically, or does all the “fit it to my database titles” work have to happen within Devonthink?
Cool! I want to emphasize that I am absolutely not a tech person. The tweaks I made to the script were in response to helpful responses to an earlier thread, and specifically based on this post. (It’s useful to read the other posts for context, but this is the key one.)
It took me a bit of trial and error to get it working per the other posters’ instructions, but once I got it set up, it’s worked fine in DT3
Oh! One other thing. I had to change the hotkey combination because control-command-M is the “move” command in DT3 and it wouldn’t be overridden. It turns out the way to do this is in the title of the script, which includes the keys you press. (kind of cool)
I renamed the file [not including extension] “_Note on Source___Shift-Cmd-Ctrl-M”, so i use shift-command-control-M to call it
The blog post has a detailed description of the workflow. Once you’re used to it, it’s a cinch.
Create a new group in your sources folder in Devonthink. Title that group precisely what you want to title the source, whatever your naming conventions are.
Open the new group and inside the new group, create a new RTF. Title that new RTF precisely the exact name as the group name.
Inside the RTF, enter all bibliographical information. The RTF then becomes like your “hub” which all notes link back to
For each new note you want to make, go to the RTF file you made and use the “Note on Source” hotkey. That will automatically generate a new notecard (new rtf file) following the template in the Note on Source script. The new notecard will be located in the Group for that source, at the same level as the “hub” RTF
I find the script works best if I call it from within the folder view.
And here’s what it looks like AFTER step 4, when I’ve called the “Note on Source Script” while highlighting the RTF file created at step 3 called “THIS IS A FAKE GROUP”
Note that you can change the template that is generated by “Note on Source”–what you see in my last screen shot is the result of my tinkering with the template, which can be found by using “Show Package Contents” on the script in the finder, then navigating to Contents/Resources/en.lproj/Note.rtf
On 1. My note-taking needs are quite limited - highlights and the occasional note. For that it’s absolutely fine for my needs. The free version should allow you to test the functions that you need. Exporting to DTP - and lots of other functionality - comes with an in-app payment.
On 2.There are limited customisation options - see screenshots from preferences below.
The first shows how you can customise the content of the exported note:
And this one shows you how to customise the exported file(s) themselves.The “File Naming” option gives you either the Document Name or the Metadata title. (I usually rename them once in DTP.)
Thanks for the mini tutorial, great work. I finally got it working and now better understand the workflow.
I do find it a little awkward however, as a workflow and its not without some unexpected limitations.
Invoking the SmartNote when reviewing a PDF from within a window does not save the note within the notes group, bit rather sends it directly to the Global Inbox. However the script does place the SmartNote in the Group when you are reviewing a document from within the Preview window.
Creating a SmartNote does not pick up Highlighted selection of text from the PDF being reviewed.
As I’m not an AppleScript programmer, my ability to make modifications is severely limited. Any insights or help would be greatly appreciated.