Documents : Office Documents, Email, and Others

Quick links:

EPUB
Office Documents
Email
Other Formats
Text and Best Alternative
Interface
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

A popular format used for digital books (including our manual), EPUB files (.epub) can be added to your databases. 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 View > Document Display > 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), these formats aren't directly editable in DEVONthink. However, it does support importing and indexing these particular document types:

Apple Pages (.pages), Numbers (.numbers), and Keynote (.key) from Apple's iWork suite
Word (.doc(x)), Excel (.xls(x)) and PowerPoint (.ppt(x)) 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

Imported email messages (.eml) have their contents indexed. This makes them searchable and a valuable asset, whether you're archiving email for personal or professional reasons. If the email contains indexable attachments, e.g., a rich text file or PDF document with a text layer, the content will be indexed and treated as part of the content of the email document. You can confirm this in the Concordance inspector. Note attachments like images, audio/video files, and PDF documents without a text layer will not be indexed nor processed, e.g., transcribed, as part of the import process. But they can be processed separately, as we'll see next.

Dealing with attachments: Attachments are included as part of the email; they are embedded and add to the file size. Separating the attachments allows them to be used independently, but be aware they will also consume twice the space – in the email and as a separate document. However, when separated they can then be made searchable or transcribed as needed. If you want to import them separately, do this:

Drag and drop in DEVONthink: Select an email with attachments, then drag and drop an attachment to the item list while using the View > Document Display > Text Alternative view.
Drag and drop from an email client: If you're not importing the email but only want the attachment, select it in the email, then drag and drop it to your database, the Sorter, DEVONthink's Dock icon, etc. This will work for Apple Mail and Outlook and will likely be allowed in several other email clients.
Import attachments automatically: Enable the Files > Emails > Import attachments setting and the attachments will be imported along side their containing emails. Note this will not group the email and its attachments. Be cautious with this as the global setting means ALL attachments will be imported from all emails being imported.
Import on demand: If you want to control what attachments you want to import from specific emails, select an email and choose the Tools > Import Email Attachments command.
Mail Scripts: In Apple Mail and Legacy Outlook, select an email with an attachment. Then in the global Scripts menu at the top of your screen, choose Add attachments to DEVONthink to import only the attachments or Add message(s) & attachments to DEVONthink. The latter command will group the email and its attachments together.

For more information on email importing see the In & Out > Handling Emails section.

Other Formats

You may be reading through this section and thinking, "Well, there are many more kinds of files than you've listed here. What about those?!" That is indeed true and the fact is you can likely put any kind of file into your database. But there are a few things to think about.

The first thing is whether there's a real benefit to putting certain files into DEVONthink. For example, it is possible to put .zip files in a database but they serve no functional purpose in they aren't indexed or searchable. It may make sense if it's just for archival purposes, but it would make less sense in an active database. The same would apply to build files, log files, temp files, etc.

The second thing to consider is whether you have two per-format components on your Mac: a QuickLook plugin and a Spotlight importer. These components come from third-parties, typically the developer of the format or an application that can edit it.

The QuickLook plugin generates a preview of a file and DEVONthink can use this to display the file. If there isn't a plugin loaded on your Mac, you will see a generic file icon.

If there is a Spotlight importer available for the file format you're adding to your database, DEVONthink may be able to use it to gather some information about the document. The kind and amount of information is dependent on how the importer was developed.

Two ways to improve the chances of getting at least a preview are: run native macOS applications and make sure the compatible application is installed on the Mac and has been launched at least once. That way a QuickLook plugin or Spotlight importer, if available, should be registered for specific formats on the machine.

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 commands available when you can make text selections in the Text Alternative view of a file.

Interface

Context Menu: 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.