Splitting a document?

Is it possible to split a RTF/Text document at the cursor position into two RTF/Text documents?
Thats a feature that would really simplifly my DEVONthink-life.
It should be a menu-command next to “merge”.
Can anybody think of a script doing this?

Thanks a lot for answers, Louise.

Louise,

I’m guessing that you know it’s possible to select a portion of an RTF or TXT file and drag that selection to the folder-item pane, where the selection becomes a new file, named for the first line of text?

It’s similar to Option-dragging in the Finder, except that this method copies portions of files. I use the select-drag method constantly to break up long files of notes into shorter labeled items.

I sense that you’re after something else, but perhaps this method is partly helpful.

Will

Louise, there’s also that ancient Mac trick of selecting a portion of text, then pressing Command-X to delete it and copy it to the clipboard.

Now that the text segment is in the clipboard, press Command-N to create a new DT Pro document whose title is the first line of text.

I’ve been splitting documents this way for years. :slight_smile:

For safety’s sake I usually work with a copy of the document that I want to split into segments.

Thanks, Howarth. I didn’t know that. But it seems as if this will make a new file of the selection, but would not delete the selection in the original file?

Thats how i do it since i’m working with DEVONthink :wink:
But if you do something a hundred times a day, you start thinking of how it could be made even more easy: without having to select anything, with one single keystroke 8) (I also would be fine with having to select the text, but then delete it from the original and paste it into a new document with one keystroke - sounds like possible with Applescript. I will try :unamused: )

Thanks for the answers, Louise.

As we have recently been talking about competition :wink: :
In OmniOutliner you can split items at cursor position: it’s as simple as pressing CTRL-RETURN (and CTRL-DELETE to merge them again).

All the times I read messages about repetitive tasks I’m reminded of Beagle Bros software on the Apple IIe. They had software they called macros. The user would determine a keystroke combination and set it to record and then go through the process using the proper keystrokes to accomplish the task; then turn off the recording and you had the procedure.

I know, I’m showing my age by talking about a IIe, but I’ve often wondered why that process (or software) is not available on our “much more modern machines”? It seems to me it would be easier for a user like me to record keystrokes than it is to learn scripting, etc.

I know of one program that does something similar, it is called iKey. There are several of these programs available for Mac OS X.

On Mac OS there used to be a feature called AppleEvent Recording that would achieve similar goals but unfortunately, this never really caught on.

The great-grandaddy of such programs is QuicKeys, now up to version 3.1.1. You can create just about any program or system automation that you want. It’s a little pricey ($80 US) but I know many long-time users who swear by it.

startly.com/products/qkx.html

Ah, the Apple IIe. My first one had a single disk drive: install the program in RAM, and then slip in a data disk to work on files. When I got a second disk drive, I thought I was in PC heaven. (My prior experience was on a mainframe, writing line at a time with embedded commands.)

Back in 1980 I got an Apple ][+ with 64 K RAM and 2 floppy drives. That was a big machine back then. Still have souvenirs like a low-serial-number copy of VisiCalc, a pink mouse card (the card, not the mouse) and a 1 MB external RAM card.

Wrote some fairly sophisticated database programs using Barney Stone’s programmable database core, DB Master. One of them was a “smart” database for groundwater monitoring data that could adjust to seasonal variations of flow directions and run all the statistical evaluations of each parameter being monitored. Another held thousands of records from hazardous waste sites that was successful in bringing responsible parties to the negotiating table to fund cleanups of the sites. I had come up with a scheme of “meta fields” that allowed data of essentially unlimited length to be entered in a field that nominally held only about 256 bytes to 32 Kbytes.

In those days, I could run larger databases on an Apple ][ than could be run on a PC, because I could bridge many floppy disks and everything was indexed. When I finally got a 5 MB hard drive, that seemed like a miracle. Don’t even ask what a 5 MB hard drive cost back then. :slight_smile:

You guys have me beat. My first Apple was a 128K Mac (given to me by a friend in 1985). My first Mac purchase was the brand spankin’-new SE, $3K right off the initial release! 1 MB of ram and a 4 MB hard drive, wow! I thought I’d never, ever use all that memory.

Before my first Mac I used a typewriter. :slight_smile: Though I started playing around with Basic on a friend’s Pet Commodore in around…dang, I can’t even remember how far back that was!

I still have my SE. I plan to make it into a planter or something. Even have my old discs, so I could still play Shadowgate or the Univited if I want.

Alexandria