Turn off line wrap for text only documents

No, we are afraid.

I badly need this feature. I rely on the output of database queries and being able to read the rows clearly is essential to what I do for living.
If this is not supported natively by DT, is there a clever workaround?
Please consider allowing us to disable line wrap in both rtf and plain text documents.
Thanks

Output your database queries to a *.txt file and use a text editor (TextEdit, BBEdit, etc.) from DEVONthink with “open with” command. *.txt file could be in an indexed folder or imported.

Plain text wraps to the window so why can’t you open the file in a document window and expand it horizontally? Does the text still exceed the window width?

Rich text wraps to the window and the margin so you’d need to be aware of both.

Thank you both for the suggestions. Neither will work for my daily workflow. It requires being able to disable line wrap and apply formatting to highlight rows or values, for example.

I’m transferring from the MS Windows world. For the past three months, I have been transferring my workflow from Windows to MacOS. I have came across multiple potential show-stoppers & was able to resolve them all. This one, however, has been a stubborn one.

Being able to display rows in a formatted way in an rtf document is essential for my use. My current Windows app allows this so easily.

I have spent three days now searching the internet for any rtfd (with images) app that allows to disable line wrap. I have found none. I can’t believe this can’t be done on MacOS. There is got to be a way.

For now, I’m back using my Windows device.

This is what my ms windows app allows me to do …

Not sure I understood what you’re trying to do but TextSoap.app allows to disable line-wrapping.

Why do you have to look at the result of SQL queries in DEVONthink? Wouldn’t a dedicated database tool be more helpful?

Also, wouldn’t it be less boring and cumbersome to look only at those results that are abnormal? I mean, perhaps one could modify the queries so that you get to see only those values that require attention?

My favorite text editor allows disabling wrapping…

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Thanks for all the replies. Even though I described what I require for my workflow, it does not look like I was clear enough.

I work with database systems and present my work to others. I collect diagnostic data that mostly presents itself in tabular format & usually it is just few rows. I need to be able to present these rows in a formatted way where columns align (as per the image I posed above). Often times, I also have to highlight a row or a value or use color fonts to emphasize findings.

On Windows, I used default wordpad which allows me to do this simply by disabling line wrap and applying RTF changes i.e. color, bold, etc.

I have not been able to do the same on MacOS using DT, TextEdit, or any other text editor mentioned above. They all open plain text files. Opening up an rtf document (like DT rich text) in plain text editor presents all the non-human readable rtf tags and it can easily corrupt the rtf content.

For my need, It has to be an RTF editor that supports images and disabling line wrap completely. If you know of such app, please reach out.

This is the option available in Windows default wordpad …

image

I still do not understand why you have to work in RTF. Every word processor can display tables, use different colors for rows/columns and include images. Pages is preinstalled in macOS and can export RTF. You can use tables there, you can mark single cells or a row or a column in whichever way you fancy. And as far as I can see, Pages does not “word wrap” a table. Pages supports normal text as well as images, too.

TextSoap can open RTF(D) files.

As mentioned it allows to disable line-wrapping, see menu View > Wrap Text to Window.

It also got custom cleaner actions that allow to rewrap text, see Window > Custom Cleaners & Groups. I never used them, though.

@pete31
TextSoap does exactly what I’m looking for. It supports rtf(d with images) and allows to disable line wrap. I can now scroll horizontally to see entire rows.
Of course, I would’ve loved to have DT support this natively.

Thanks to you and everyone else how helped. Great community!

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A future release might support this.

The tool that was suggested earlier, was good in concept, but did not live up to its promise. Unstable, hangs, crashes, etc. I was not usable for my workflow.
For now, I’ll park my Macbook & Devonthink aside. I’ll watch for future releases hoping this feature to appear in DT.
Thanks again.

What tool are you referring to?

FWIW I use TextSoap quite often and it works (almost) without issues over here.

The only case where it doesn’t work reliably is when all of the following are given:

  • option Expression enabled (i.e. use regex)
  • option Live enabled (i.e. show results while typing the expression)
  • a “large” text
  • providing a bad regex

In such cases I first develop the regex with a part of the text and afterwards use the tested regex with the large text.

TextSoap

I have not spent much time troubleshooting it. For my workflow, when I paste 30 long rows or more, the app stops responding. I can’t scroll vertically or horizontally for few seconds. It works probably 80% of the time, I can not just rely on it for my presentations.

Understood. Please consider sending the developer a mail with a problematic example file. He‘s a nice guy and will probably look into this