Hi, I read a thread on here about setting up a shortcut for summarising highlights in a PDF (sidenote: why is a German app translating to American English, haven’t the Americans conquered enough of the internet? 
).
I hadn’t tried the summarise function, so I imported a test pdf to give it a go. It hasn’t worked and I think I know why, but I don’t know how computers work so please can someone check my understanding?
I tend to read my PDFs in GoodNotes, and do my highlighting and initial notes in there (the bits you’d write directly on the paper in the olden days!). When I export from GoodNotes, I have a choice to export a “flattened” PDF or an “editable” PDF. I exported an “editable” PDF because I assumed the flattened version wouldn’t have info that was useful to Devonthink. I imported the PDF to DT and added OCR, but when I click on “summarize Highlights” nothing happens (I get no error in the log and no error sound plays). I’m guessing GoodNotes doesn’t handle the PDF amends in a manner that is useful to DT (or standard?), so DT thinks there are no highlights to summarise? I’m guessing some special layer is missing that is holding highlight and notes info that DT needs, is that how DT knows where the highlights are?
When you go to export in Goodnotes, you’re given this menu:
The option to include the annotations suggests GoodNotes is “storing” the data separately to the rest of the file, but I’m guessing it’s not in a format that DT can read. I actually think the amends you make in a PDF in GoodNotes might be stored in a manner that is native to GoodNotes rather than a standard PDF format, as you can do many non-standard things (GoodNotes treats it like “paper”, so I can doodle or add anything to the file).
Does this make sense? Assuming my understanding is correct, I’m guessing the problem here is GoodNotes? And if I am keen to use this function I need to read and “interact” with PDFs in software that handles annotations in a standard format so DT can read it?
Thank you to whoever decided to just let the annotation functions remember the font size and colour, and the highlighter colour, you used last time. It is ridiculous how many apps don’t do this! And the ability to have different highlighter colours at the click of a button!
), but I love how DTTG is handling it so far!