I’d like to make a feature request. As a lawyer, one of the ways that I would like to see DTP improve is with the addition of a redaction feature. I scan in all of my documents. Rather than print them out and redact them with a sharpie, and then scan in the redacted copy, I wish DTP had a feature that permitted redaction. It would also be nice if I could hide the redaction so as to preserve the original unedited version as well.
Also, I know you are working on Devon Think to Go 2.0 for the iPad. I honestly think the current version (which I purchased) is useless. I know you’re fixing the sync issues, but I am praying you add features as well that allow just about full use of my DTP databases while on the go. The redaction feature would be fantastic for the DT2G since I would much prefer to do my document redactions on an iPad, rather than on my desktop computer.
Since these are scanned documents, I imagine they are PDFs, by “redact” I assume that you mean annotation – marginal markups and notes – rather than changing document text. DEVONthink Personal has PDF annotation tools built-in.
You have also the option to open the documents in Preview, which is free and has better annotation tools than DEVONthink (just my opinion). There are other free annotation tools (Skim) and paid (Acrobat, PDF Pen, and so on). Annotations made in Preview, PDF Pen, and others, will be visible and editable in DEVONthink. Skim annotations can be viewed in DEVONthink, but not changed except in Skim.
Turning annotation visibility on and off would be useful – it’s possible to do this in Acrobat Pro, but that is a pricey option.
I use PDFpenPro, so I’m familiar with how it works. Other PDF editing/annotating tools may have a similar function, but the redact function in PDFPenPro is a menu option where the user makes a selection of text, and then redacts it so that it is either blacked out or erased out (white space).
The Redact format tools in PDFPen Pro can either black out or white out (erase) selected text in a PDF. The underlying text layer for that selection is no longer searchable nor is it visible when text is extracted from the PDF.
May not be the perfect answer but when I want to redact a text, which to me means blocking out some text, I use Skim—all I do is change the highlight colour to black and then highlight the unwanted text. I then can, if I wish, import that ‘redacted’ document into DTPO and either delete or keep the original.
@Allsop: This a true but the contents under the redaction are still searchable in DEVONthink. This is a fine solution if the file is going to be printed to a hard copy (and one I stumbled upon myself in DT’s Annotation / Highlight tools) but insufficient for vending files to other parties.
