Do any other DTTG users notice the following and find it a problem?
When a PDF is viewed in full screen mode, when an iPad is in horizontal model, after the first page, all subsequent pages are displayed two-up.
‘Full screen mode’ means when this icon is pressed:
It is necessary to resize each page of the two pages shown to fill the screen.
I raised this directly with DT support when DTTG was still in beta.
The response was that the ‘fault’ was with the application that generated the PDF.
I pointed out (as far as I can recollect) that most apps do not give an option as to how an PDF should be generated so that they display single page only. Also that other PDF viewers (such as PDF Expert on iOS) are not fixed in this way. None of this cut any ice with the support representative.
Although this happens with iPads (e.g. 9.7 inch Pro version), it does not occur with an iPhone (such as the 7+).
It is not clear why DT are able to make the iPhone display PDFs differently when they cannot/will do so with an iPad.
This is, for me at least, a serious inconvenience to viewing pdfs in DTTG. Especially those with larger page sizes and smaller typefaces. (I am aware I can transfer the pdfs to another app, but I do not see why it necessary to do so when no other PDF viewer that I am aware of works in this way. DTTG is atypical in this regard.)
This is a problem in all versions of DTTG (up to and including version 2.0.6 (16008)). All iOS versions too (up to and including 10.1.1).
I also have the small iPad Pro and after the first page, subsequent pages are 2-up. However, I found that by going to vertical mode, I get one page. I find differences between viewing content in vertical vs horizontal in various apps and figure the iPad ( pro or not) is designed that way (whether it’s iOS or the app developer). At any rate, I’ve learned that if one view doesn’t provide what I want, I flip the iPad - often that gives me what I want. That seems to be the case with DTTG.
I think I’d rather have it that way, since if horizontal were redesigned to give just one page for PDFs, I’d have fewer options.
This is standard behavior. The first and last pages of a PDF are considered the front and back covers (regardless of content). When you see a two page spread - pages 2 and 3, for example - that is a Reader’s spread - how we read a document. The front cover and back cover aren’t shown in a Reader’s spread because they’re not read that way. Therefore they display as singular pages. (See 30+ years in Printing and Graphic Arts comes in handy again! )
Note: If you display a PDF in Two Page or Two Page Continuous in DEVONthink, this appears to violate the rule. This is merely because PDFs can display in a non-standard way. For anyone who ever wondered, check out View > PDF Display > Book Mode with a Two Page option and you’ll see what I’m referring to.
korm, what I am trying to avoid here is the introduction of yet another preference, UI option, etc. as iOS is built for simplicity. So I try to find a mode that works as good as possible for everyone.
It is interesting to see the responses from DT personnel, but respectfully they miss the point.
What ever is the default (printing) standard (bluefrog), DTTG is atypical and non-standard in not giving the option to display a PDF as a single pages in horizontal mode compared to other apps which can display pdfs. Also it is not consistent. If there was no other way of doing this other than displaying pages after 1 as 2-up, then DTTG on the iPhone would also show such pdfs pages 2 up.
Also the argument about ‘simplicity’ is valid, but only up-to-a-point. iPads are a smaller screen size than most computers’ monitors, and the consequence is that unless most pages are A5 or smaller size, and the text is large, then the text will not be easily readable 2-up. If there has to be one default option than why not make it that the display is always 1-up?
My (non-expert view) is that the ability to show pages 1-up or 2-up after page 1 is something entirely in the control of DevonThink, but it chooses not to implement a choice (whether because of a policy decision, or the view of an employee who believes that is just how it should be, regardless of what is needed by the users).
Also, the DevonThink service to Save PDF to DevonThink Pro does not permit or give any options so that, for example, the resulting PDF can be displayed one-up or two-up
It also fails to address the point that displaying a page with is large (say A4), with smaller size type and which is a scanned original, then horizontal mode is the only way to see the page at a reasonable size without immediately resorting to zooming and scrolling horizontally to see odd numbered pages. Korm makes the point on this more eloquently than I can.
Despite the negative points above. DTTG is an excellent application, and the new synchronising method works very well.
There are many fine options on iOS for PDF sync, view, annotate – all of which do full-page or page-width one-up presentation of the PDF, by default. Regardless of device orientation. Their developers grew up in iOS and understand the platform and the user base. Even Adobe, which did not grow up in iOS gets it. It’s great to have other options.
Quite simply from an accessibility point of view, for those who need the largest possible character size while still fitting to one of the horizontal or vertical dimensions. Portrait mode helps, but landscape mode with the width of the page fitting the horizontal dimension is better still. With 1-up, a simple double-tap expands the page to fill the width and then scrolling in a vertical direction gives a very comfortable reading experience.
If the aim is to find a mode that works as well as possible for everyone, without introducing UI preferences, then what is the basis for thinking that 1-Up 2-Up achieves that? It seems to me that a consistent 1-Up would achieve it better, but perhaps you have been inundated with requests for 1-Up 2-Up that we’re not aware of.
Dear all, as people have different opinions on what would be “optimal”, we are a) experimenting with options to collect feedback (like in this thread) and b) applying changes gradually to find the best compromise. We come from the Mac but DTTG2 was designed fully with iOS in mind.
So, currently and technically (from the PDF view controller we use) we have the following options:
Always show a single page.
Always show two pages side-by-side.
Show two pages only when the view is sufficiently large and two pages can be shown without too much shrinking.
Currently we use no. 3 but from your feedback here I learn that probably no. 1 would be more desirable?
korm: When we discuss feature here we tend to evaluate all input but not to implement it right away but try to explain our thoughts that led to the current implementation and to explore the possible options taking all factors into account, e.g. not adding preferences options or too many buttons on iOS (see also: feature creep, preferences overload).
Thanks for considering feedback on this issue. It seems to me that the definition of “too much shrinking” in option 3 is a key point. I would never want 2-up in landscape on an iPhone or an iPad mini, but I might be quite happy with 2-up on an iPad 12.9". I just find the text to be too small to be useful in 2-up on an iPad 9.7" - but if you tuned your parameter that defines “too much shrinking” so that the iPad 9.7" displayed in 1-up, then I would be happy with option 3. Two pages side-by-side on the largest iPad and 1 page on the smaller iOS devices would be very nice.
I am not keen on a default Book mode for 2-up as my pdfs rarely have a cover page.
Cautiously wading in here, as I encountered this same issue today. Would be great to have the option to display one or two pages in landscape. The PDF I was reading was a scan of a book, in which each page of the PDF was in fact two pages of the book that had been scanned. So 2 pages next to each other was actually 4 pages, which were both too small to read easily and just too much stuff on the page. (This is on a 12.9 inch iPad) But viewing in portrait instead of landscape meant the two pages of the book were on their side, which wasn’t practical.
I switched to goodreader to go through that PDF, which gives you the option of 1 or 2 PDF pages at a time. Incidentally, slightly off topic, I find the annotation functions built in to DTTG to work very nicely–nicer, in fact, than goodreader or other alternatives I’ve come across.
Absolutely agree to the view that it would be great to have an option to display only one page in landscape mode. In case your are presenting this is essential so that you can go from one page to the other. I am doing this on an 12.9 iPad often and have been unhappy about this handling for a while. Please change this and it will add significantly to the usability of DEVONthink.
for the life of me i cannot figure out how to give the PDF i’m reading on iOS more real estate in my screen. I’m trying to hold my phone in landscape mode, but the PDF always becomes smaller, not bigger. In landscape mode it occupies only the right side of the screen while the item list appears next to it. I cannot figure out how to access the PDF view settings described above.
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