How to search PDF annotations within PDFs using DEVONthink? I mean the search scope only includes PDF annotations, like the left panel in PDF Expert. But I need to search within PDF annotations across multiple PDFs.
Thanks for your help.
The text of PDF annotations is actually indexed & searchable and used by the toolbar search. The document search inspector shows also occurrences in annotations. However, it’s not possible to limit the results to matching annotations.
What a pity. Could it be a feature request for the future release?
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Sure but there’s already a long to-do list and not every request will make it into the app in the end.
I could totally use annotation search as well, and was hoping it was available this morning when I had a need for it. The more I annotate, the more helpful it would become.
Since there are always more feature requests than can be fulfilled, it would be tremendous if Devonthink had a roadmap users could distribute votes on like other popular apps. This would not mean DT has to do any of it, but it could be a rather helpful, measurable indicator of where the greatest interests and needs are.
Voting is biased in that it only reflects the opinion of the users who vote. For any “popular app”, that is a tiny minority of the user base. Voting can be helpful as a CRM initiative, but that’s not because the votes represent the “greatest interests and needs”.
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That’s one argument. On the other hand:
- While voting may be biased, it still provides valuable quantitative data that can complement other feedback channels
- Even if only a minority votes, their feedback could represent common use cases and pain points
- Proper voting system design can help mitigate participation bias (e.g., by weighing responses based on user engagement)
- The alternative of having no structured feedback system could be worse than having an imperfect one
- Active users who participate in voting may have more relevant insights since they use the product extensively.
- Even if the votes aren’t perfectly representative, they can initiate conversations among users about their needs and priorities. This can lead to more nuanced feedback and feature requests.
- By providing a platform for voting and acknowledging user feedback, Devonthink can foster a stronger sense of community and demonstrate responsiveness to its user base. This already happens to some extent here on this forum, though if I were to run an analysis across most topics, I suspect the trend is primarily to help users figure out existing functionality, with limited positive responsiveness to feature suggestions. I suspect this is because feature requests are disorganized, endless, and all over the place. Having run communications and marketing for an equally large, likely larger organization than this, something I have learned is that those who are most engaged, bought in, and positively reinforced, tend to be the best promoters.
In my own case, Devonthink has made such a sufficiently significant difference to my workflows that I’ve referred several hundred people to try it through various workshops, speaking engagements, and social media platforms. I’ve also influenced a few departments at a couple of universities to adopt using it, along with a variety of other research center directors.
It’s a well-known irony among tech enthusiasts of China that smartphone manufactures make horrible products when they actually heed community votes (on the Chinese equivalent of Twitter). The stereotypical voting user is a young, male gamer who wants nothing but a beefy SoC at a price as low as possible.
Data is a treasure when you draw conclusions, and a distraction when you make decisions. My scientist friends hate this statement as much as they hate the fact that their research direction is determined by the data of what’s trending.
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