I have just started to use DEVONthink Pro. I have a number of files which are web archives (HTML). These files are more useful to me as PDFs. I can download the individual files as PDFs but then the files will have today’s date and I need to use the files by date of creation. Is there any way to change the date of creation of the file?
UncleClyde, the ability to change creation date was possible.
That’s a tricky issue. There can be circumstances where a creation date of a file becomes very important, such as for laboratory notes. In that case the ability to modify the creation dates of notes and records really isn’t a good idea and could have legal ramifications, e.g. for patent application or defense scenarios.
At one time Christian provided a script that allowed one to change the creation date of documents. That script has been removed.
You might consider inserting the creation date of the WebArchive original into the Comment field of the corresponding PDF. The content field is searchable, and you can also sort by the contents of this field.
How are you determining the creation date of the PDF files?
Two scripts under the Dates submenu of DEVONthink Pro’s script menu might be helpful:
Copy Creation to Modification Date
Copy Modification to Creation Date
The dates used are whatever’s displayed in the Created and Modified fields of an item’s Information window (Tools > Show Info… or the shift-command-I shortcut).
I use the first script to reset creation dates for certain kinds of items after editing them in ways that it doesn’t make sense to update the modification date, like a batch of rich text documents I clean up awhile after their original capture (as I did this afternoon). It preserves their original sort order in the Modified column of the view, which is useful to me.
There’s possibly more I could add but first I need to understand how you want to get the creation date of a PDF files you’re downloading that you claim has “today’s date”.