Being On Time

New assignments bring also the dreaded due dates. Use DEVONthink and the Mac’s built-in calendar application to stay organized.

Select a document in DEVONthink Pro or Pro Office and choose Scripts > Reminders > Add as Event to Calendar. You’ll be given a choice of calendars to use as well as a relative date (tomorrow, next week, etc.) to set as the due date. This creates a new event in Calendar with a link directly to the document in your database.

Or you may want to create a timeline of your own. Imagine you type the following into a document in DEVONthink:

• Read War and Peace - Sept. 10
• Go dancing - Next Thursday
• Graduation - May 30, 2017

If you have turned on data detectors in Preferences > Editing, hovering over the date brings up a small dotted line and a drop-down arrow. Click it and choose Quick Look Event. This opens a popup to create a calendar entry. It won’t include your reason for the entry but since you’re looking at it, you can fill it in quickly.

Notes: If it doesn’t show the dotted line, select the date, right-click, and it should show up in the top of the contextual menu. Also, if you have been provided a Word file (.doc) as a syllabus, you can select it in DEVONthink, choose View > Text Alternative, and now the data detectors should work the same way.