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Quick links: |  | EPUB Office Documents Email Text and Best Alternative Context Menu Items Item Linking Linked Files

|  |  | Office Documents, Email, and Others

DEVONthink is the central hub for many environments, from home to office, and you are likely using several other applications along side it. As often mentioned, DEVONthink supports importing many file types; some editable, some not. If a format is text-based, like XML files, they may be directly editable. But even if a file is not editable, it may be searchable. This section is obviously not exhaustive in what kind of files can be added to DEVONthink, but if you have a format we haven't discussed, the easiest thing to do is just try importing it. Any failures will be reported in Window > Log. EPUB EPUB files (`.epub`) are a popular format, commonly used for digital books (including our manual). While they can't be edited in DEVONthink, their contents are fully indexed and searchable, making them a viable resource in your databases. Navigate an EPUB file in the Content > Table of Contents inspector or choose the View > Document Display > Text Alternative view. When searching an EPUB file, the view/edit pane will switch automatically to the Text Alternative view to display the search hits. Office Documents Word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications are common in many situations. When using the proprietary formats from these applications, like Microsoft Word documents (`.doc`, `.docx`) instead of rich text files, these formats aren't directly editable in DEVONthink. However, it does support importing and indexing these particular document types: Apple Pages, Numbers, and Keynote from Apple's iWork suite Word, Excel, and PowerPoint from Microsoft's Microsoft Office suite. Files from supporting applications, like the OpenOffice or LibreOffice suites. Files from the popular macOS Mellel word processor. These formats can only be imported, however it is possible to add template files of these formats. For example, you may have a boilerplate Pages document you often use. This could be added as a template to quickly add to your database, then opened and edited in Pages. See the appendix for a bit more information. PRO Email Imported email messages have their contents indexed (excluding the contents of attachments). This makes them searchable and a valuable asset, whether you're archiving email for personal or professional reasons. Text and Best Alternative For some document formats, e.g., email messages or Word documents, DEVONthink only allows you to select and copy text in the Text Alternative view. If DEVONthink is able to interpret and convert the document format, you can use the and buttons in the navigation bar to switch between a view that allows you to select, copy, and drag text or the Quick Look view showing a more "accurate" view of a file. Also note you will have text-related context menu items available when you can make text selections in the Text Alternative view of a file.
Note: For uneditable formats, DEVONthink uses Quick Look to display the file, provided an appropriate Quick Look plugin or application providing one is installed. If a document you want to view in DEVONthink does not show a Quick Look preview, you may need to contact the maker of the source application and ask them to add Quick Look support.
Context Menu Items Context menu items aren't available in Quick Look views, e.g., Control-clicking in a PowerPoint file. Also, when using the Text Alternative mode for these files, some but not all context items related to text selections are available. Read more... Item Linking No alternate item links are available for non-native formats. Linked Files On occasion we get an inquiry about importing files with linked assets, like Adobe Illustrator or InDesign files. While it's certainly possible to import these, the links will be broken if you try to import a folder structure containing the links. Groups in DEVONthink do not exist in the file system, so the groups that are created when you import a folder structure from the Finder don't exist as real folders in the database. The files inside the folders are imported into the internal structure of the database, so their paths are not pointing to the groups in the database. If you want to include these kinds of files in your databases, you could keep the linked files external and only import the documents. You could also index the complete folder structure containing your files into the database, leaving them where they are in the Finder. Since the paths aren't changing, the links would be preserved when you open the documents.