Read Me First
Welcome to Take Control of Getting Started with DEVONthink 2, Third Edition, version 3.0, published in November 2016 by TidBITS Publishing Inc. This book was written by Joe Kissell and edited by Tonya Engst, with significant help from Kelly Turner.
This book teaches you the basics of DEVONthink (Personal, Professional, and Pro Office editions) version 2 on the Mac and DEVONthink To Go in iOS. You’ll learn how to find your way around, get information into and out of DEVONthink, and make the most of the program’s most important features.
Copyright © 2016, alt concepts inc. All rights reserved.
Updates and More
You can access extras related to this ebook on the Web (use the link in Ebook Extras, near the end; it’s available only to purchasers). On the ebook’s Take Control Extras page, you can:
- Download any available new version of the ebook for free, or buy any subsequent edition at a discount.
- Download various formats, including PDF, EPUB, and Mobipocket. (Learn about reading on mobile devices on our Device Advice page.)
- Read the ebook’s blog.
If you bought this ebook from the Take Control Web site, it has been added to your account, where you can download it in other formats and access any future updates. However, if you bought this ebook elsewhere, you can add it to your account manually; see Ebook Extras.
Basics
To review background information that might help you understand this book better, such as finding System Preferences and working with files in the Finder, read Tonya Engst’s free ebook Read Me First: A Take Control Crash Course, available for free on the Web or as a standalone ebook in PDF, EPUB, and the Kindle’s Mobipocket format.
What’s New in the Third Edition
DEVONthink has been updated quite a few times since I wrote the second edition of this book (back when version 2.3.3 was current). Even though the software is still “DEVONthink 2” (that is, version 2.x), the latest version as I write this text—version 2.9.6—includes hundreds of (mostly minor) changes and bug fixes compared to what I described earlier, as well as some significant new features. In addition, since the second edition appeared, Apple released several major upgrades to the Mac operating system, each of which had its own long list of changes.
Accordingly, I’ve updated this book in many ways, both large and small.
Among the most significant changes are the following:
- Updated the page Quicker Start for Second Edition Readers to help readers of the previous edition find new information quickly
- Revised the sidebar Where Not to Store Your Databases to reflect the new sync capabilities, and to mention that iCloud Drive isn’t a good place for your databases
- Added a number of newer options to Create Documents in DEVONthink, including Formatted Note, HTML Page, and Markdown Text
- Thoroughly revised Clip to DEVONthink Browser Extension to describe its current behavior
- Added instructions to Use the Share Extension for getting data into DEVONthink
- Revised Scan Documents with up-to-date instructions for using ScanSnap Manager or ExactScan
- Added the topic Convert Document Formats about converting documents from one format to another
- Rewrote nearly all of the Sync Your DEVONthink Databases chapter, which now covers DEVONthink’s new (and vastly improved) sync capability
- Rewrote the entire Use DEVONthink To Go chapter, which now covers the completely rewritten DEVONthink To Go version 2
- In the Get Information Out of DEVONthink chapter, significantly updated the topics Use DEVONthink’s Web Server and Export Data, and added the topic Share Data
- Revised much of Use AppleScript and Automator with DEVONthink
- Replaced all the graphics with up-to-date versions
- Modernized the look and feel of the book to reflect the latest Take Control style