Hey all,
Before posting here I’ve read many posts, but I’m still confused.
Question 1:
I use both DT3 and DTTG.
My notes often include pictures so I decided to use the .rtf format.
The issue with .rtf s, is the picture rendering on DTTG: with big ones, even in landscape-mode, I can see only a small (leftish) section on them.
So I’ve decided to give “Formatted note” format a try, but now the pictures are so small that words on them are hard to read.
This affect both my iPhone and my iPad Pro 12.9" (so small and large screens).
Should I move to another format? Am i missing something ?
If i put a picture with a table in my note is kind impossible to read.
Question 2:
Do you have any suggestions to make my notes more readable as in markdown ?
If I understand you correctly, you want to include images in notes (as opposed to reference them). In that case, I guess RTF and PDF are your only choices. A formatted note is basically HTML, which only references images (loosely spoken – one can include images in HTML, but most people wouldn’t want to, because that increases file size dramatically and reduces legibility at the same time). The same holds true for Markdown: it only references images (although it can, as HTML, include them with the same consequences as HTML).
I’m not sure that I understand your question. Markdown is pure text. What could be more readable than that? Also, there’s a HTML preview availabe for MD, side by side with the source. If by “readable” you mean “visually pleasing”, that might be what you’re looking for.
As to the rendering of images in RTF: I guess that that depends on settings on the images themselves. But since I do not use RTF at all, others would have to chime in on that.
What would the attributes of “more readable” be for you? Larger Font? Darker? Different Font? Smaller Font? Wider spacing? Different colour(s)? Paper vs. Screen an issue?
If I understand you correctly, you want to include images in notes (as opposed to reference them). In that case, I guess RTF and PDF are your only choices. A formatted note is basically HTML, which only references images (loosely spoken – one can include images in HTML, but most people wouldn’t want to, because that increases file size dramatically and reduces legibility at the same time).
Thanks for the clarification. I have seen actually that “formatted note” files are very huge.
You understood corrctly, i want to include images in my notes.
As to the rendering of images in RTF: I guess that that depends on settings on the images themselves. But since I do not use RTF at all, others would have to chime in on that.
I can’t menage settings on each pictures, as long as RTF render pictures badly on mobile, my only chance is to link images inside my note.
I’m quite worried this could create a terrible mess in my database.
I’m not sure that I understand your question. Markdown is pure text. What could be more readable than that? Also, there’s a HTML preview availabe for MD, side by side with the source. If by “readable” you mean “visually pleasing”, that might be what you’re looking for.
What would the attributes of “more readable” be for you? Larger Font? Darker? Different Font? Smaller Font? Wider spacing? Different colour(s)? Paper vs. Screen an issue?
I was refering to make notes in rtf look as good as notes in markdown.
In MD is quite easy to menage syntax and give the document a good looking appereance.
Well, RTF is all about representation. So you have to manage image size on a per-image basis, there is no concept of “all my images should be 200 pixels wide”. I think.
A German person might say “Einen Tod musst Du sterben”. You can either include images in your document, than you’ll have to take care of sizing. Or you can reference them, than you have to take care of the data the links are pointing to. Tertium non datur.
I’d overlooked this tiny little “as” before “in Markdown” in your first post. My bad.
What I’d suggest for your MD notes in respect to images: create a group for each document containing the text and the images it refers to. As long as you’re only working within DT, you can refer to your images with an x-devonthink-item URL. To work outside of DT, you could export your group as a folder and refer to the images with relativ URLs like ‘./image.png’. This might also work inside DT, I haven’t tried it.
There’s also the possibility to include the image as a data URL inside the MD file as I mentioned before. Not ideal, though.
I really love DT but I still think that making notes in the most neutral way lets them last long, despite the application you use. That’s the reason I’m quite worried about linking the pictures.
For linking outside DT, if DT supported (like obsidian o typora) picture inside MD that would be great but unless that moment is arrived, I can’t use MD.
Is markdown really that important to you? If not, maybe use Word, Pages, or some other document container that is built for text+images. Save the files into DEVONthink.
What can be more “neutral” than a pure text format?
Then you must use PDF. That’s the only format that is portable, normed and permits inclusion of images.
That is a misconception. Obsidian uses a packages (proprietary) to make you believe that it includes the images. MD does not provide for that.
Of course, as @rmschne said, there’s Pages and Word. Which are not clear text nor semantic.
It boils down to that: You have to go down one road. None of them is golden all the way – they have smooth stretches and potholes. All of them.
Of course. How would you search in the text of binary documents which Pages and Word produce?
But if this relationship between images and text is so important, than you have to go with a format that supports this relationship and protects it. So forget about MD or HTML. Go for Word, Pages, InDesign, PDF, whatever.
EDIT The rest of this text is nonsense, please ignore
Which of course means that DT will be only of limited use then. You must decide to have your cake or eat it, and this discussion is not really going anywhere.
for such complex documents (notes) I‘ve decided to use Apple‘s Pages App - works fine on both, Mac and iOS - and can easily be opened and modified with ‚open in‘ on DT2Go.
All other stuff is handled via Markdown, text only.
