Home | Appendix

Quick links: |  | Undo, Cut/Copy/Paste, … Summarize, Tags, Set Name Find, Spelling, Insert Dictation & Emojis

|  |  | The Edit Menu

The Edit menu contains all commands and options relating to editing. You'll find the classic Mac cut/copy/paste and find/replace commands here, as well as many more. Undo, Cut/Copy/Paste, … Undo/Redo: Use these commands to undo or redo the last action, e.g.,to undo deleting a file. Undo and Redo work for most actions. Cut/Copy/Paste: Do exactly what their names say. Copy URL: Copies the URL of the selected or frontmost document to the clipboard. Copy Item/Page Link: Copies a URL to the clipboard that links to the selected document or group. These links can be used to create a back link to the document in applications that support live hyperlinks. For PDFs, hold the ⇧Shift key to reveal the Copy Page Link option. Paste and Match Style: Pastes text from the clipboard, matching the styles in the current document. Delete: Deletes the selected piece of text. Complete: Tries to auto-complete the partial word before the insertion caret. This standard Mac function uses the currently active dictionary, chosen in the language dropdown of the Spelling and Grammar > Show Spelling and Grammar panel. Select All/Deselect All: Selects or deselects the complete content of the frontmost document. Hold the ⇧Shift key to reveal the Deselect All option. Summarize, Tags, Set Name Summarize: Summarizes the selected piece of text. Unlike the Mac's Summarize service, this command takes advantage of the built-in AI of DEVONthink, and uses the complete "knowledge" contained in the open databases for improving the results. The better your databases, the better the results. Tags: Use this command to quickly enter tags for the current document. This displays the Tag bar, if necessary. Set Name As: Applies the selected text as the document's name. Find, Spelling, Insert Find: This submenu contains standard Mac find commands, like those available in TextEdit. Searches on the current document are displayed in the Search Inspector. Two commands of note are: In Database: Brings the search field of the frontmost window into focus. Scroll To Selection: In long documents, this command scrolls the current document to selected text. Spelling and Grammar: Provides the standard macOS functionality for checking text for spelling or grammar errors. To choose the language used for spell checking, or for auto-completion (see above), open the spell checker panel with Edit > Spelling and Grammar > Show Spelling and Grammar and choose your language of choice from the pop-up menu. Substitutions: Shows the standard Substitutions preference panel and switch the available options manually on and off: Smart Copy/Paste, Smart Quotes, Smart Dashes, Smart Links, Data Detectors, and Text Replacements. Data Detectors analyze shown text and make context-sensitive actions available, e.g., when you hover the cursor over a phone number or postal address.
Note: The Spelling and Grammar and Substitutions commands can be temporarily applied to the current document. If you'd like these to be persistent choices, you can make global changes in Preferences > Editing.
Transformations: Use this submenu to change selected text to all lowercase or uppercase, or to capitalize every word. Speech: Starts or stops speaking the selected piece of text. Insert: Inserts items, like pictures, checkboxes, bulleted lists, etc. The options available are dependent on the current file type. Dictation & Emojis Start Dictation: Starts the Mac's dictation function. Emoji & Symbols: Shows the standard Special Characters panel for inserting characters and emoji that you cannot enter directly with your keyboard.