Paperless-ngx to Devonthink-- "bates numbering"

DEVONthink
1

Hi, like many others here I have been using paperless-ngx (Docker on Synology NAS) but am somewhat annoyed by how much work it is to keep the container up to date. All in all I think DT is just the much safer option.
Having said this paperless as it is does serve my purposes very well, I use it to archive only private written mail and other documentation.

There is one thing however, that I cannot quite get my head around: paperless allows you to add an “ASN” (Archive Serial Number") to a DOCUMENT. I use these to physically mark the documents I am not comfortable to throw away and keep in a physical folder.

When processing documents in the inbox you simply hit “ASN +1” and it applies the next ASN when you need it.

From what I understand, DT only allows you to use “bates numbers”. And from what I further understand these numbers are applied per page - which is not what I need. Also, I don’t want bates numbers to be added to all imported documents but rather only to the documents I would like to keep physically (not very many obviously).

Is there any way to realize this aspect in DT?

Thanks a lot for your help.

2

Bates numbers are not automatically assigned, only when using them (e.g. in smart rules or scripts).

3

Thanks, @cgrunenberg - understood.
But they will be applied to (all) pages not just on a document level, correct?

4

A PDF document with n pages reserves the same amount of bates numbers but it’s not really applied to a page unless you imprint the pages using bates numbers.

5

Ok. But how do I apply the bates numbering rule?
I would think I mark a document and click “apply rule”, “bates numbering”. But that doesn’t work.

6

Where exactly do you want to use the bates number?

7

That is incorrect. Bates numbering is one option. You could also use…

  • Tags
  • Custom metadata
  • Finder Comments
  • A prefix, infix, or suffix in the filename
8

The OP is after an automatically increasing number. I don’t think that tags, metadata or finder comments can help with that. One would need some kind of data attached to the database that can be incremented atomically, ie without running into a race condition with the same (synced) database on another machine.
Perhaps I’m not seeing the forest for the trees, but I don’t think DT can do that, (safely).
A dumb solution would be a text document that keeps the last number used and whose content is updated whenever that number is incremented. Feasible, but not elegant and not safe if the same database is used on more than one machine.

9

Yes, I know. But even with those vectors, it’s possible to automate something beyond using a Bates number. Bates would be more automatic but it is affected by/reliant on the number of pages in a document. It doesn’t merely increment by one. So anything else “automatic” will require a solution more in line with how you or I think :wink: