I’m new to DTPO and trying to develop a plan for how to use it for a history book I’m writing with Scrivener. My research has begun to slow Scrivener so I hope to bring those documents over to DevonThink. I especially look forward to being able to use replicants to organize research documents in various places at once.
What is the best way for me to bring my hierarchical/outline arranged folders from Scrivener over to (what I assume will be) a similar structure in DTOP?
I also wish I could include the “Synopsis” information that goes with Scrivener items. Not sure if I’ll have to manually transfer that. If so, where do I put it? I use it in Scrivener for bibliography information. Would I cut and past it to the Spotlight comments in DTOP?
Perhaps I really need a good bibliography app to do all I want, but I hesitate to start with yet another app.
To start, any tips on specifically how to transfer items from Scrivener to DTPO?
This structure doesn’t exist in the filesystem so that’s a dead-end.
Also, Scrivener doesn’t appear to have an Applescript dictionary so that route is dead too.
At a glance, I think the best option would be doing exports to a new folder and rebuild in DEVONthink.
You’ll also lose your footnotes.
It is rather a pity that Devonthink doesn’t deal with footnotes.
Recently I’ve been taking my notes in mellel documents stored in DTP. I can’t use Nisus for this, because the footnotes don’t show up, and if one doesn’t lock the document one could edit it in DTP, thus losing them entirely.
Using mellel works, somewhat. The documents show up with the quicklook, with footnotes intact. They can be opened and edited in Mellel. The other advantage of using Mellel is that the collaboration with Bookends is solid.
That way I can avail of the See Also functionality, indicating what else I need to be reading to bring that bit of research ahead.
The plan is to cut and paste the relevant sections back into Scrivener for drafting (which will bring the footnotes back in).
It’s all a little too complicated.
I know that doesn’t respond to your issue for the moment, but I thought I’d throw it out there anyway for what it’s worth.
I suppose the suggestion is that if you have footnotes that you need to hold on to, you might be careful to find a way not to lose them in transition. For this, I’ve found that there are some advantages to Mellel documents in DTP.
Declan
This is an fileType issue (more proprietary formats support them, not RTF / plain text / etc), not ours.
I know that. But from the user’s point of view (in this case, mine), the issue remains.
The reason I brought it up is that if the OP brings his stuff from Scrivener into DTP he risks losing footnotes (if he has them). That’s worth knowing.
I’m not complaining.
My solution for the moment is to use Mellel.
But I still think it is rather a roundabout solution.
Declan
You can capture the synopsis information from Scrivener and import it into DT. Locate your Scrivener database, click on it and open contextual menu, select show package contents. You’ll find the synopsis information in the Docs folder stored as txt files with a numeric name; the corresponding document with the same numeric name but stored as an rtf file contains your main document content. If you want to see a hierarchal representation (Binder) to aid in folder creation in DT, look in the QuickView folder where you will find an html file titled Preview.