I have set up syncing between DT To Go on my iPad and DT Pro Office on my Mac (latest versions of DT on both devices as of 03/30/2017) via Dropbox. My DT database contains several Rich Text file that I have created within DT Pro Office on the Mac and that have a fair amount of special formatting, such as bold and italic styling, custom margins and tabs, etc. These DT Pro Office–created RTF files display all of the custom styling and tabs when opened on the iPad, but if I perform some editing of one of the files on the iPad and then sync the database back to the Mac, all of the special formatting is lost when the edited file is displayed on the Mac, i.e., the file is displayed as plain text, with the margins and all of the custom ruler settings lost, despite the fact that the display of the file on my iPad after the edits on that device does not lose any of the custom formatting. Other RTF files in the same DT database that have not been edited on the iPad do not lose their special formatting after the database is synced back to the Mac and displayed on it. If I sync the now-plain text file from the Mac back to the iPad, the new display of the file on the iPad is plain text with default formatting, i.e. all of the custom formatting of the edited RTF file is lost permanently on all devices. Perhaps I have missed a crucial setting on DT To Go to avoid this formatting loss, but if so, I cannot find it.
I’d appreciate a suggestion on how I can perform edits of RTF files on my iPad and avoid losing the special formatting when the file is synced back to my Mac.
Unfortunately Apple decided not to give iOS the RTF editor that they gave the Mac (a.k.a. the TextEdit engine). So we implemented a third-party editor that does no implement all features of RTF and RTFD. The RTF format is quite complex and an RTF editor is even more so.
We recommend using formatted notes or Markdown instead as more future-proof file formats.
I think this topic is worthy of a blog post. As we store important documents we intend to keep for years to come, “future-proofing” is an important consideration. I encountered many file formats that lost favor over the years since I have been writing since the advent of the digital age. I encountered the same issue with photos in the early days. I am now transitioning from RTF to formatted notes in DTPO.
You do a great job of making sure data stored in DTPO is reliably stored and can easily be removed if circumstances require. I’m in the process of removing EN data since 2009 and using DTPO now that work can be so easily routed from iOS to Mac laptop to Desktop devices. DTPO is the only application I know of that makes sense out of this transition (there may be others, I’m just not aware). I finally determined EN may not be a good choice for the long term (I know, I may be a slow learner). While I’ve used to use DTPO for my serious work projects it is now my go to place for document storage, both personally and professionally.
Thank you for considering a post on this topic, shall we call it a “sustainable approach to document storage and file formats”?
Keep up the good work! Thank you.
-bob
Thanks for the thoughts and kind words. Check this out… blog.devontechnologies.com/?s=markdown
Thank you, while having read these articles in the past, my present situation and reading them together now was helpful. I’ve never used markdown. Since I’ve transferred my journal to DTPO, I’m going to give it a try. Thanks for assembling the articles.
-bob