Finding document content in the Document Manager

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Þorvarður
Posts: 410
Joined: 2012-12-19 05:02:52

Finding document content in the Document Manager

Post by Þorvarður »

I will try to simplify the question I posed yesterday* … in case my first post was not clear.

Could someone be so kind, please, and perform a test and report the result afterwards?

1. Create a folder on the Desktop and name it 'Test'.
2. Save a Nisus document as template into that folder. The file should have the ending .dot and contain some pseudo word for easy retrieval, a word that doesn't exist in any other file. That facilitates the search.

Now please check if Spotlight can find the said word in the template.

I'm asking for this because I can't find anything myself and would like to know whether something is broken in my machine or whether this is a Nisus shortcoming which needs to be improved.

Thank you.

*https://nisus.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=12043
ugur
Posts: 7
Joined: 2022-02-13 10:42:28

Re: Finding document content in the Document Manager

Post by ugur »

Created a template file named "meintemplate.dot", saved it on desktop, in a folder named "temp". Searched keywords from that file via Spotlight, Alfred, and Houdahspot, without success.

To compare, I created a template file in MS Word (a classic old ".dot" template file, not the new ".dotx" file) with a very specific keyword in it, then tried to search for that keyword, without success.

I am guessing that Spotlight does not index ".dot" files, for whatever reason.
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Hamid
Posts: 777
Joined: 2007-01-17 03:25:42

Re: Finding document content in the Document Manager

Post by Hamid »

Both Spotlight and NWP failed to find content in .dot files. Re-indexing Spotlight made no difference. Also, I found out that both failed to find content in other file formats which previously they did.
I am on 12.2.1.
Find Any File app found content in .dot files and other file formats
https://findanyfile.app/index.php
Þorvarður
Posts: 410
Joined: 2012-12-19 05:02:52

Re: Finding document content in the Document Manager

Post by Þorvarður »

Thank you very much Hamid and ugur for taking the time to do this simple test.
Hamid wrote: 2022-03-13 06:44:31I am on 12.2.1.
Find Any File app found content in .dot files and other file formats
Yes, I can confirm that this is true.
In High Sierra 10.13.6 Spotlight can also find content in .dot and .dotx files if they were created by MS Word [my version is 16.16.27 ], but not if they were created by Nisus.

For quick access, I keep all my templates now in the Document Manager (business letters, to-do lists, etc.) It's a pity the content can't be found there in .dot files.

Until this has been fixed, I thought I might be able to use .rtf files as Stationary pad in the Document Manager because, when opened, a copy of the original file should be automatically created, but alas, Nisus doesn’t seem to recognize Stationary pads in the Document Manager. Moreover, if a Stationary pad file is opened in the Document Manager, altered and saved, the Stationary pad attribution is removed from the file in the Finder!

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Bob Stern
Posts: 170
Joined: 2006-03-12 12:32:47

Re: Finding document content in the Document Manager

Post by Bob Stern »

Locking the file in Finder > Get Info does work. NWP can still see it in the document manager and open it. If you try to modify the file, NWP warns you that it is locked and gives you the option to unlock it or save a copy.
Þorvarður
Posts: 410
Joined: 2012-12-19 05:02:52

Re: Finding document content in the Document Manager

Post by Þorvarður »

Bob Stern wrote: 2022-03-14 16:45:48 Locking the file in Finder > Get Info does work.
Thanks for your suggestion, Bob, but for clarification, are you referring here to files that were saved as Rich Text Files? If yes, then I have already tried that, but it's a bit tedious; you end up with two open documents, the duplicate and the original file which you need to close to get it out of the way.

The document manager can also see .dot files, of course, but can't see what's inside them. That's the main theme of this thread. :–)
Bob Stern
Posts: 170
Joined: 2006-03-12 12:32:47

Re: Finding document content in the Document Manager

Post by Bob Stern »

Þorvarður wrote: 2022-03-14 20:28:31 Thanks for your suggestion, Bob, but for clarification, are you referring here to files that were saved as Rich Text Files? If yes, then I have already tried that, but it's a bit tedious; you end up with two open documents, the duplicate and the original file which you need to close to get it out of the way.
Yes, that is what I meant.

In any event, I suspect the problem is that the .dot extension also was used by old versions of MS Office. When I look at a Nisus .dot file in Finder list view, the file "kind" is identified as "Microsoft Word 97-2004 Template" even though Get Info is set to always open .dot files in NWP. Likewise, the mdls utility identifies the kMDItemContentType of Nisus .dot files as "com.microsoft.word.dot". I expect this means Spotlight is attempting to index .dot files as if they were MS Word .dot files in DOC format, but fails to do so because Nisus .dot files are in RTF rather than DOC format.

I'm running Catalina, so the outcome may be different in different versions of MacOS.
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