OMG,THANK YOU! You’re the first person who finally just spells it out. If only this were documented somewhere. It’s so discouraging to feel so stupid when everyone else seems to think it’s obvious. Well, it IS obvious, now that I see how it’s done.
Hello. Thank you for the directions. I have followed them, but any annotations I make on PDF Expert are not visible when I open the file again in DTTG.
I know the annotations are being saved by PDF Expert, because when I go back to PDF Expert and open the file from the “Recents” window in PDF Expert the annotations are all there. They are just not transferring over to DTTG. iOS, DTTG and PDF Expert are all latest versions as of this post.
Any suggestions? Thank you in advance.
Sorry. Can’t reproduce that. When you sync to the desktop, are the annotations visible?
Intersting… I’ve followed the instructions and can see the DT structure and files within them. BUT, I can’t select one and open it. I’ve tried making sure the PDF file has been downloaded in DTTG. Even then, none of the shown PDF’s are openable in PDF Expert.
Thoughts?
Sorry about the delay in replying. I wanted to do some testing before replying. I believe I know where the problem lies.
I imported a brand new sample 1 page pdf into DTTG, and went through several cycles of annotating it in PDF Expert iOS, syncing DTTG and DT Pro Office (using Dropbox sync), annotating the same file on PDF Expert desktop version, re-syncing and checking the file on DTTG. Even after several cycles of this, all annotations showed up appropriately.
However, I then annotated the file on DTTG itself and closed it. I then opened the file on PDF Expert iOS but it did not show the DTTG annotation. I annotated the file on PDF Expert - when I reopened the file on DTTG it showed the most recent DTTG annotations, but not the PDF Expert annotations. From that point on, syncing the file and opening it on the DT Pro Office would only reflect the post-DTTG-annotation version of the file.
Long story short, it appears that annotating a file in DTTG creates a new version of the file. This new version is viewable and editable within the DT iOS and desktop framework, but is no longer present within the iOS Document Provider framework or available to any other iOS applications.
Appreciate your thoughts on the issue. Thank you.
Try closing the document picker, shutting down DTTG and PDFExpert (double click the home button and flick the apps off the screen). If that doesn’t work try rebooting. Sometimes document provider needs a kick to get going right. Make sure you have the latest versions of iOS and DTTG. Sometimes the database has to be configured for “download always”.
That might be the case, but it’s more likely that Readle’s framework for PDF annotations is not consistent with the PSPDFKit framework that DEVONthink to Go uses.
The best course of action is to pick an annotation service and stick with it for a document – don’t do your annotation is more than one software for any given document.
You’ll never get Readle, PSPDFKit, Adobe, Branchfire, and all the other annotation providers to stick to the same standards.
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Some apps like PDF Expert ‘cache’ files that you opened with them. So even when you open a PDF again from PDF Expert it may or may not grab the latest version from DTTG2. We don’t know if there’s anything we could do except for changing the original file’s location, which is not something we’d like to do.
I’ve been experimenting with PDF Reader Pro (which has been around for a while) on iPad. This app supports document provider and has an option to save an annotated document and “overwrite [the] file in iCloud Drive” – which appears to replace the instance in DTTG. So far this works ok – but I’m not sure what the implications for sync might be, if any. The annotations seem to sync back down to DEVONthink on the desktop intact, without issues.
Thank you for the comments @eboehnisch and @korm.
I will contact PDF Expert support to see what they suggest. Maybe there is a way to turn off the caching on their end.
In the meantime, I will stick to using just one annotation method like @korm suggested.
Same here: [Working on iPad Pro, latest iOS, rebooted machine, restarted apps (both DTTG and PDF Expert)]
Szenario:
- opening a PDF file in PDF Expert via /iCloud Drive/Locations/DEVONthink To Go
- annotate the PDF file in PDF Expert
- close PDF file
- check PDF file in DTTG: Annotations are there
- repeating steps 1. through 4. for a second time: new Annotations are NOT there
Sometimes when trying a bit later it might work again … but it’s definitely not reliable.
no - I did not make any Annotation in DTTG!
Had the same issue with DTTG and PDF Expert 6. Seems to me it is a PDF Expert 6 problem. In fact, if I use the PDF Expert document picker to take a file from DTTG and made an annotation (whatever type) it work, but just the first time.
If I leave PDF Expert open and pick again the DTTG file and made another annotation (whatever type) it doesn’t sync back to DTTG.
If I want to add another annotation to an already annotated file I am forced to close PDF Expert and reopen the file.
Therefore, it seems to me that PDF Expert save the PDF in the cache and this create some problems with the overall syncing process.
Has someone found any solutions? or alternative? Sincerely I would prefer not to use the internal PDF annotator…
No. This is a PDF Expert issue, not a DEVONtech one.
Yep, Sorry I didn’t make it clear enough. It is totally PDF Expert fault. DTTG works greatly with other software (Adobe Acrobat for example). I already sent PDF Expert support an email about it.
I just wanted to confirm the problem, and see if someone found some tricks to use PDF Expert with DTTG (some way of clearing PDF Expert Cache without quitting the app, some settings etc.) 
No problem. No tricks or workarounds I know of personally.
Alright. I have to bump this because I am a bit confused. I want to annotate PDFs in PDFExpert on iOS and have them synced as the PDFs with the annotations in DTTG (and DT Pro).
Let’s presume first that all players in the transfer chain work as they should to transfer annotations PDF Expert -> DTTG. I am only concerned with understanding the process to make this happen.
I set up sync with Dropbox using DT Pro on my mac. I see the folder Apps: Devonthink Packet Sync. Inside is the store that I created (DTPro.dtCloud). I can use this successfully to access database between my iPad and my mac.
This is however apparently NOT how I am supposed to be able to access the PDFs with all three apps (DTTG iOS, DT Pro macOS, and PDF Expert macOS/iOS) ???
For discussion purposes, let’s call the database that I want to sync RRR (research, read, review). Am I supposed to do this …
- Create a folder in Dropbox (Dropbox:Shared:PDFs)
- Store (raw) PDFs in that folder
- Point PDF Expert to that folder and annotate the PDF files
- Point DT Pro to that folder to INDEX the PDF files to the database RRR
==> ??? point DTTG to that folder too (ideal approach but how) ???
or
==> ??? realize that PDF files that are in the database RRR in DT Pro are synced to the database RRR in DTTG when the sync takes place ???
I presume this is the process and the latter step is what I have to do. I must sync annotations on PDF files made in PDF Expert back to DTTG using the process PDF Expert -> Dropbox PDF File -> DT Pro database index -> DTTG database.
Any insights would be appreciated.
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JJW
Your fatal flaw: DEVONthink To Go does not support indexed files, so no you can’t point it at some Dropbox folder. If you index the folder on the Mac, you must sync the contents of indexed items and those will be local to DEVONthink To Go.
You could then use the Document Provider to open the PDF files in DTTG in PDF Expert.
I see the folder Apps: Devonthink Packet Sync. Inside is the store that I created (DTPro.dtCloud). I can use this successfully to access database between my iPad and my mac.
PS: You shouldn’t be seeing any local sync data on your Mac. You should be excluding the DEVONthink Packet Sync in the Dropbox app’s Preferences > Sync > Selective Sync.
OK. Thanks. I am out of Pocket now and switching to DTTG primarily for this feature.
Some day perhaps the ability to share files seamlessly between apps on iOS will be brought out of the stone age. Not the fault of DTTG or PDF Expert I know.
I am unconcerned about whether I see or do not see these things. Alternatively, I figure when I am not supposed to see something, the developers of the app will make sure it is appropriately hidden (lest I inadvertently go mucking about in it before I find the fine print on page 856 of the user’s manual telling me not to do that).
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JJW