I enjoyed that one so much I (genuinely) listened to it twice. It goes well with last weekâs focused episode.
I am curious for people that are primarily using Drafts for a writing workflow how you handle references or other documents, web pages etc that you need to reference while writing?
Iâll jump in here.
I tried using Drafts Pro for writing but gave up. Drafts is excellent for capturing snippets of text to be sent elsewhere or for something simple and only a few paragraphs long.
In my estimation, Drafts fails as a writing app for anything more than a page long or has multiple levels, citations, images, tables, and the like. Consequently, I canceled my Drafts Pro subscription long ago. I now only use Drafts to draft a sensitive or otherwise important email. This gives me time to ruminate on the draft before sending it, preventing me from accidentally sending it prematurely or in a form Iâll regret later.
Drafts is a great app, but I donât find it helpful for anything other than simple, short text.
For longer text, story, etc, I start with Drafts, then continue in Obsidian to enter citation, footnote, photos, etc.
But this means I have two places to look for stuff. Iâll just have to remember that short text, notes are in Drafts. The longer ones in Obsidian.
Off topic! But another thing Drafts is excellent for is importing whole PDF documents as editable text. Much to my delight I discovered that it even automatically removes line breaks and preserves paragraphs. (It wonât import images or illustrations, however, just text.) Iâve found it to be superior to the âexport as textâ functionality built into PDF applications like PDF Expert or Nitro. Itâs really useful when youâve lost the word-processor original of something you distributed as a PDF and find that you need to rewrite or update it.
Of course the quality of the import depends on the quality of the original PDF, but Iâve found that I get accurate results when I start with a reasonably clean document in a clear font.
Thanks for sharing that. I learned something new. I did not realize that Drafts had that function.
That said, I use DEVONthink for the same purpose. As soon as I import a PDF into DEVONthink, it is OCRed. The text recognition in DEVONthink is excellent, and it preserves the images as well.
Does iPadOS version provide this option?
If youâre asking about converting to rich text from a TextBundle file, the answer appears to be yes. However, you cannot edit a TextBundle document in DEVONthink until it has been converted to another format.
Me too! Iâm a happy DEVONthink user, but had no idea it could export PDFs as editable text documents. With images to boot!
I have Drafts Pro, a long time user of it. I like the simplicity and speed of it. However, as I review my applications, I wonder if I really ever need it.
I donât âsendâ anything from Drafts to another âappâ. For me Drafts, for the last year, has been literally a scratch pad for me.
If I am on my phone, itâs a snippet of thoughts, writing, you name it. Then depending on the situation, I just copy and paste to where it needs to go, and then start working in that app.
Sometimes, Drafts, also acts for like a âtrackerâ, books or movies that people recommend, a quick quote I heard and want to save. It can become unwieldy, which now reminds me I should probably clean it out.
Also, I will sometimes store email templates in Drafts. Could I use Obsidian for all this? Theoretically, but Obsidian is more where the âfinished productsâ reside.
Lastly, I feel that Drafts syncs faster than any writing app (but it could be in my own head as well)
Good episode! Like David, I use Drafts to store snippets of writing ideas. Unlike David, I thought I needed to clean those snippets out regularly and move them to Obsidian. In practice, I never got around to this, which was frustrating. Now I think I can just leave them in Drafts, in their own separate workspace.
Iâd been thinking of moving off drafts and now instead Iâm thinking of trying to make better use of it. Still âthe place where text startsâ but does not finish â but thereâs no reason the text canât hang out in Drafts a good long time.
If you are not writing in Drafts, what do you write in?
This is definitely the ârediscovering Draftsâ episode for me.
Then I thought, âMaybe I shouldnât use Drafts for this kind of thing? Maybe Bear would be better? Or Noteplan? Or maybe I should move off Obsidian entirely?â
Then I thought, âCool it, cowboy.â Maybe those things would be betterâbut it would be even better not to fool around with the software and just do the work.
Today I learned Drafts has a command palette on the Mac. And the quick capture is very nice.
I really need to go through the Drafts manual again - Iâve been using it for years and never realized it has this capability
I also find that free Drafts (without Pro) serves my purpose. Yet, I want to support Agile Tortoise but not at $1.99/month. If there is a Drafts Lite subscription at $0.99/month, Iâd jump at it just as a token of appreciation.
@MitchWagner As they say, âItâs complicated.â 
I admit Iâve struggled mightily to settle on a writing app.
The good news is that I have settled on the app for book projects, Scrivener.
As to other writing, Iâve vacillated between Ulysses and Pages. I have a long list of Pros and Cons for either choice. My difficulty stems from the multiple purposes of my writing. If my writing were entirely for reading, I would use Ulysses exclusively.
However, I write for school communications, presentations at work, conferences, reports for the board, and training I do for a national foundation. The presentations include images of slides so that when I present, I know when to switch slides. I write white papers that include graphs, images, tables, footnotes, and bibliographies. Additionally, I write blog articles, which also include images and citations. Ulysses can handle all of this, but I frequently must clean up the final productâs formatting. The problem with Pages is that it takes many mouse clicks to embed and arrange images, which will sometimes shift if I change text, add tables, etc.
Iâm thinking that Ulysses + DT is ultimately my best options but Iâm still struggling to make a final decision. 
I wish someone would put me out of my misery and tell me which one to use, or offer an alternative. 
However, as I review my applications, I wonder if I really ever need it.
I donât âsendâ anything from Drafts to another âappâ. For me Drafts, for the last year, has been literally a scratch pad for me.
I use Tot precisely because all I need is a scratchpad.
The only export I use is Devonthink (possible through the share sheet in Tot), so Drafts was major overkill and far too complex (especially the UI) for my needs. I realized that when I wanted to do anything, even simple things like change the icon, I got lost in the complex and unintuitive interface, and I enjoy the simplicity of Tot much more.
This may work for me too. However, I canât find a way on the Mac to send the text to DEVONthink, which is one of my primary uses of Drafts as well. When I click on âEdit ExtensionsâŚâ DT is not an available option.
Have you looked in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Extensions > Sharing? I found Add to DEVONthink in there, and ticking the box made it available in the Sharing menu of other programs.
Oddly, itâs still not available in the âEdit Extensionsâ menu on the Sharing menu (i.e. in the screenshot you shared), though Add to DEVONthink is right there in the menu.
