Scan and auto rename workflow

DEVONthink Tips
1

I am new to DT, so hopefully this is not a stupid question, but have looked at the documentation and searched but not found an answer yet :frowning:

I am contemplating moving from Evernote (EN) to DT. One of the main uses for EN is the ability to file important documents that I need a record of but are not accessed frequently (tax returns, etc). In EN I do the following:

  1. scan with scansnap 550 - save to a folder as searchable PDF
  2. use Hazel to read the file and then rename it based on the contents and today’s date
  3. Then there is a little script I use to move it to the correct notebook in EN
    tell application “Evernote”
    create note from file theFile notebook {“notebook-name”}
    end tell
  4. Hazel then moves the original file onto a NAS drive (yes, I end up with 2 copies but the data is important enough to warrant this).

So, I then end up with a searchable PDF, already renamed and filed in the correct place in EN.
What is important here is that the process is fully automated - I just have to put the doc in the scanner and the mac does the rest. I DON’T want to have to rename files myself or choose where they should be ‘filed’.

Can I achieve the same in DT?
Regards,
Dale

2

Yes - but Pro or Pro Office is required. At the simplest level, you’d only be replacing the script to send the data to Evernote with an action send it to DEVONthink.

You could use a Folder Action (inluded with Pro/Pro Office) on another folder to move the file(s).
If using Pro Office, you could scan and rename via Hazel and use a Folder Action to import, OCR and delete the original (which can easily be commented our, if desired).

The level of automation for DEVONthink compared to Evernote is huge.