How to capture a linked document from web page?

DEVONthink Tips
1

I frequently visit a number of web pages that contain links to PDFs, PowerPoint, and Word documents, among others. With PDFs it’s a no-brainer to import these linked documents: click on the link to view the PDF, then right-click → Capture PDF. (Though I’d love the option to capture the PDF in the current folder, not just the Inbox of the current DB.)

But with unsupported documents like PPT documents, there doesn’t seem to be a good way to do this. The contextual menu only gives the option to capture the link (as a link), or handle the link with the Download Manager (not convenient). Usually I open the current page in my main web browser, download the file and drag it back into DT.

What am I missing?

2

If you are using DT Pro or DT Pro Office, you can from most browsers use File > Save As and send the displayed page to the ‘Inbox’ Place in the left column of a Finder window. The file will then appear in your Global Inbox. An HTML page will be saved as a WebArchive. PDF, Powerpoint and Word documents will be saved in their native filetype.

In fact, most of the time when I’m creating a new document in Pages, Numbers or Excel I use File > Save to save it to the ‘Inbox’, directly in to my Global Inbox.

3

Thanks, Bill. Capturing from an external browser is not the problem here, though—it’s actually my workaround.

What I’m trying to do is capture from a web page viewed within DTPO. This seems a pretty straightforward interaction (see a link in a page, save it to your database), so I assumed there must be some way to do it.

As it is, right-clicking a PPT document from a DTPO browser includes options to…

  • Capture Link (saves a link, which is useless because DT can’t read an online PPT document)
  • Add Link To Downloads (adds to DTPO download manager, which is pretty heavyweight for a simple file download)

If there’s no way to handle this elegantly, I suppose I could script it—but it seems a shame to need a script for something so straightforward.

4

The download manager has indeed many options but can be nonetheless used like the download manager of most browsers.

For example Option-click on a link to add it to the download manager and ensure that the options “Only added files” and “Download To… Inbox” are selected, then start the queue.

The first maintenance release (2.0.2) will change the default settings to the ones above so that it’s easier to use the download manager.

5

Ah, brilliant—the download manager fits the bill nicely with a couple changed settings.

If I could be so bold, two quick feature requests for the download manager:

  • Have it appear on the current space (using Spaces), not be tied to its original home
  • Enable “Current database” as a download location option. (This is usually one step closer to where I’m working than the Global Inbox.)

Thanks again Christian—this tip is very helpful.