Just sharing an update to my seemingly-popular DEVONsave workflow:
TL;DR: clipping the web to PDF via DEVONthink To Go isn’t possible, and creating PDFs from websites on iOS is universally terrible (key problem: all links break/disappear ). So, this shortcut combo lets you create nice-looking HTML (customizable via CSS if you’re comfortable) from (most) webpages, and then DEVONthink 3 converts those to nice PDFs on the desktop.
It’s worked well for me for the past year or two, albeit there are still some sites that seem to block downloads of content.
The shortcut works if you select the helper shortcut with the correct name: “Devonsave by type”
Seems this used to be called something else, and that was still in there?
@macsorcery Not sure I have enough info yet to be able to post a fix into the shortcuts themselves. Far as I can tell it should work from the get-go. I have added info about @JKoopmans fix if the error occurs in the post, though.
I also stupidly forgot to link to the instructions for getting the DT3 desktop conversion working. The post now clarifies this too.
I was going to say: I think that issue was a problem with Shortcuts itself, as I’ve encountered it too with various shortcuts and a reboot of the phone always allowed Shortcuts to run again.
And no. Apologies as it wasn’t clear from the initial version of the post, but DT3 on the desktop does the conversion work. Far as I can tell, it’s the only option. See the updated post for a link to the explanation of getting the desktop side working.
I’ve checked the shortcuts and the DEVONsave v3 runs the shortcut DEVONsave identify type rather than DEVONsave by type. After I changed the subsequent shortcut to DEVONsave by type, it worked fine. Not sure if this how it’s supposed to be though.
Thanks! I’ve seen this report elsewhere, too. Sadly I have no idea why this happens, as it has never been called “identify”, and the version I export has the correct name.
@ryanjamurphy this works well for text, though on a limited number of web pages. Most of the news sources I use block grabbing text content unfortunately. But the process doesn’t grab images. (So far.) The resulting HTML has the “missing image” icon in place of images in the body.
Thanks for the report. I have found the same, in general. This is another scenario in which Shortcuts actions are inconsistent. Try, for instance, a The Verge article (e.g., https://www.theverge.com/21507966/csk-8th-wonder-of-the-world). The images are fine! (Albeit small—note that folks who use images a lot might want to add in some custom styling to the shortcut to make them bigger.)
However, extract an article from e.g., the New York Times and it seems only the first image is grabbed.
I would love to make it more robust if anyone has any ideas.