Copy-pasting reference data as rich text

[macula]

Here is a slightly technical question, and any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

I use the Bookends template and script provided by DevonThink Pro Office, which allows me to easily transfer my bibliographic records from the former to the latter.

In a nutshell, the script "copies" the reference currently selected in Bookends (i.e. it virtually "presses" Command-C), and pastes the raw, unformatted, tab-delimited results into DevonThink, which then performs further parsing and formatting.

I have tweaked the DevonThink script and template to copy-paste not only the title, author and date (as in the standard version), but also my Bookends notes per bibliographic item.

The problem is that the copied-pasted text is plain, and all formatting of my research notes (italics etc.) is therefore lost in the process.

Jon, I wonder if the copied-pasted text could be made rich rather than plain in a future release. Any other possible workarounds?

Many thanks.

[Jon]

Did you try this manually (no script)? Text copied from Bookends is rich text in the clipboard, just like any other app. I'm guessing the script is ignoring the formatting once it has the text.

Jon
Sonny Software

[macula]

Thanks, Jon, for your customarily speedy response.

Yes, I did try this manually: pasting (Cmd-V) into TextEdit, for instance, also yields plain text. It seems that the 'problem' is at the 'copy' stage rather than the 'paste' stage. Perhaps this behavior is non-reproducible on your system?

[Jon]

Yes, it retains styles in TextEdit.

It's possible that the font you are using doesn't support italics (e.g. Geneva). Bookends will display italics with any font, but many other apps won't unless the font specially has an italic face. Set the font in Bookends to something that has an italic face (like Times New Roman) and try again (you can see which fonts do and don't have italic and bold faces by using Command-T in an app like TextEdit and selecting the font).

If that's not the issue, please contact me directly off-forum and we'll work on it.

Jon
Sonny Software

[wtagg]

I have tweaked the DevonThink script and template to copy-paste not only the title, author and date (as in the standard version), but also my Bookends notes per bibliographic item.

Macula, would you be willing to share the AppleScript you described here? Like you I use DevonThink and am also a heavy user of the Notes feature in Bookends.

Best regards,

Will